Listen to this piece through WBEZ here.

In an average day, I drink about 50 fluid ounces of orange Gatorade, which is particularly impressive when you consider that I have never exercised. For instance, I believe that "running" is a gerund that should always be followed by either from or to. One runs from muggers, or to the ice cream store because it is about to close. Running for one's health seems to me as morally bankrupt as a pre-emptive war: Why attack your heart when it has not yet attacked you?

But it is difficult to live here when you're not given over to physical activity. Many Chicago locations are separated by what is called "walking distance." I'm from suburban Alabama, where "walking distance" extends from your couch to your refrigerator, but here in Chicago, "walking distance" can refer to five, or even six, city blocks.

To me, six blocks is a span of space that ought not be bridged by foot. Six blocks is an epic walk, the kind of walk history remembers with phrases like "death march" and "trail of tears." So because I am a bad person who hates the environment, I drive. Chicago is the rare town in which a person can comfortably survive without a car, and I am the rare Chicagoan who doesn't care.

Now, you're probably not even aware of gas prices, on account of how you commute to work via an environmentally friendly Segway Scooter. But gasoline has gotten pretty expensive lately, because it so happens that fighting wars for oil and democracy shrinks the overall world reserves of oil and democracy.

Just last week, I spent $2.45 per gallon to fill up my family-size sedan. And as I watched the dollar-counter spin ever so much faster than the gallon-counter, I sort of regretted purchasing a family-size sedan, particularly since the family in question consists of me and some Big Mac wrappers.

After I filled up my car with gas, I went home and peed--like I said, I drink a lot of Gatorade--and then on the long walk from the bathroom to the living room, I heard a Gatorade commercial asking, "Is it in you?" Due to the aforementioned urinating, it was not in me, so I got in the car, drove five blocks down Western to Jewel, and purchased a gallon of orange Gatorade for $4.99. And then I realized: Gatorade is twice as expensive as gasoline. Gatorade. Allow me to compare the complexities involved in making these two liquids:

Gasoline: Mine oil, a non-sustainable resource, from miles inside the ground. Refine oil in factory. Ship gasoline halfway across the world in a gigantic, triple-hulled boat. Truck gasoline in hazmat tanker from port to destination, then fill underground reservoirs at station with gas.

Gatorade: Get water. Add sugar.

In the rest of the world, gasoline is, appropriately, very expensive, which is why a family-size sedan in France is a Fiat with a roof rack onto which you can strap Grandma. And I know, I know-France is a circle of hell forgotten by Dante where Gatorade cannot be purchased for any price because the French subsist on nothing but red wine and unfiltered cigarette smoke. But just because they are backwards and hate freedom doesn't mean we can't take a lesson from old Europe. Sugar water should not be cheaper than gasoline, and American slobs like me should pay dearly for the privilege of driving around on fossil fuels. So keep hiking the price of gas. Please. We will pay, because God knows we aren't going to walk.