Ways To Counter Higher Petrol Prices

In The Star page 12 today, there is a section on Ways You Can Save Petrol, don't you just love these cheat sheets... and we were living like idiots wasting our resources for so long. Anyway, the brilliant suggestions:

1) Drive smoothly (like we can on the roads with many potholes, sometimes huge stone boulders are erected for no reason you know... I have always advocated that 4WD is the way to go for Malaysian drivers, cause its a bloody jungle out there with the irregular humps, unrepaired holes and deeply indented manholes)

2) Use Higher Gear (cbmf, try and use third or fourth gear when going to work in the morning and returning home ... we all should be so lucky to be driving in third gear all the way to work or from home ... those driving manual cars will tell you, their left legs are enormously muscular because of driving to and from work... cb first and second gears only all the way from Subang to city, or pick any suburb actually)

3) Tune and Service Your Car (that's right, besides the normal tune up and servicing, tune some more, extra RM200... cb isn't that spending more already???)

4) Keep Your Tyres At The Right Pressure (hmmm thanks, I never keep tyres at the right pressure when petrol was RM1.60/liter, I go 250 on front left, 280 on front right, and just 200 at the back... just for the heck of it, petrol cheap mah... so play around with tyre pressure la)

5) Avoid Carrying Excess Weight ( sorry, girls, I can no longer date any woman weighing above 100kg ... before I might consider, but now, no way jose!!!)

6) Keep The Windows Closed (like we got a choice, anyone bother to breathe in the smog and fumes while driving in our beautiful country?)

7) Take The Roof Rack Off (might as well, since we cannot afford the mountain biking or canoeing now... actually why do we need the roof rack anyway, its always 99% unutilised)

8) Use The Correct Oil (this is so lame, I am not even going to bother to make fun of it)

9) Cruise Control (is that asking for Tom Cruise's advice while driving?)

10) Avoid Excess Idling (so would we, so would we ... turn off engine while idling ok, but has anyone consider the fucking weather while we are idling, not that we don't want to save on petrol, but we need the aircon so that we don't "soil ourselves" or "sweat uncontrollably"... cbmf the dry cleaning bills would be a few x more expensive than our cost savings)

My own useful advice on how to face up to the higher petrol prices:

a) Sell your pets, cannot afford to keep them anymore.

b) Ask your parents to cash in their life insurance or annuities ... errr...

c) Every time a beggar asks for money, go on a 20 minute explanation why higher petrol prices caused you to have to cut back on empathy/sympathy/charity with financial consequences.

d) Find out and compare other liquids that cost more than petrol... did you know Coke per liter is more expensive than oil per liter... or tomato juice... or even branded mineral water ... every time you do that you'd find you can easily cut back on these more "expensive items" ... now don't you feel better already?

e) To channel your frustration and anger positively, have more angry sex with your partner. Everybody wins.

f) For guys, stop visiting brothels, call up your old girlfriends to see if you can get lucky, never know?!!

g) Drain your fengshui fountain of water and replace it with petrol, surely petrol more "lucrative, symbolic" and "valuable" than water, right?

h) Beat up your kids more often than usual as a stress release mechanism, sorry kids! But something's gotta give.

Have a nice weekend!!!

p/s photos: Marsha Milan Londoh & Nasha Aziz