God I hate driving.

So I haven’t had a car in about 10 years but recently came back to the role of automobile ownership and although it’s been a blessing in certain cases, it’s been a nightmare in others.

First of all. What the hell happened to the price of gas? I felt like Back to the Future 2 when I saw some of these prices. Did somebody hit me across the head and I fell into 10 years of a coma because the last I remember I would be able to troll onto Route 46 and compare-shop myself down to about $0.89/gallon. All of a sudden I pull up to one of these NYC gas-stations and pay $3.10/gallon and there isn't even somebody pumping my gas for me. Is this new 2009 gas made from gold or something?

Secondly, I would think that when I got to the future it would be more civilized but with all this honking, beeping and screaming, how does anybody expect you to have a cell phone conversation while driving? When did it become OK for every idiot driver to honk at any given time? People honk when they are trying to pass you, when they want you to move at a light, when there are people cross the street, when they get close to you in their car, when they stand outside of an apartment building.
Is this the new method of communication in this crazy 2009 world?

And finally, what the hell happened to the flying car.. I was told that by now we would be zipping Jetson style all over the place but instead I go from one ridiculous traffic jam to the other.
I figure that NYC was expecting the flying car to have been here already which is the only reason I can think of why they haven’t fixed any of the same pot-holes I used to hit in the Jeep back in 1998 or haven’t figured out how to properly funnel people over the Brooklyn bridge.

Somehow in 10 years of not owning a car, there have been no improvements what so ever