There's nothing like the lusty month of May for raising awareness. May Day. Cinco de Mayo. Cinco de Cuatro. It's a beautiful month when we all say, “Hey, what the hell, we're progs—let's protest and bare our boobs and break windows and go looting and chain ourselves to something.” Pretty cool no matter what your issue, platform, or grievance, but I repeat myself.

Of course, the cognitive disarray of May and the reality in this country sometimes bites you on the butt and shakes you by the back of your already drooping, relaxed fit shorts. This precise thing happened to me today, while I was out raising awareness of the need for more social justice.

Here I was riding in my air conditioned pink limo, sipping my White Russian mocha latte and reading about Prince William's love life in People magazine. I happened to glance up and see a convenience store/gas station at the side of the busy thoroughfare, and I called out to my chauffeur.

“Pedro! Today is Wednesday, that means it's Lotto Night. Pull into this Race-Trac and buy me some lottery tickets. Use your EBT card and I'll sign the paperwork to get you another one after I win.”

As always, Pedro did as he was told, pulling into the Race-Trac and—because my limo is so big and pink and I like to be in the shade—he parked it next to a whole row of gas pumps beneath a canopy. He left the engine running so I might continue to enjoy the air conditioning as well as the accompanying guilt about what it was doing to the planet's fragile CO2 choked atmosphere.

That's when I noticed a dowdy, desperate looking middle-aged woman standing right next to my car with an empty gas can.

I could see at once that she wasn't just some skank who was homeless and panhandling. I rarely see that anyway whenever I deign to step out of my parents' $400,000 McMansion. (There used to be another zero on that amount until the Republicans screwed up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by giving tax breaks to their predatory lender friends.) She looked as if she might be in her late 40's to mid 50's, black knit pants, long sleeved print shirt. She could've been a social worker, or maybe a state employee.

She tapped on my window and I lowered it, thinking she meant to let me know that my fluffy Blinky the Cat in the back window was still winking, but instead she held up a gas can and said, “My car ran out of gas just down the road from here and I don't have any money. Could you spare a little something to help me out?”

Yes, comrades, her car sputtered and died just down the road from here because it ran out of gas. Bone dry. And the poor dear didn't have her purse or debit card to buy more. What a rotten day she was having. But if not for that empty gas can she so fortuitously had handy, her day could have been much, much worse.

I sat there staring at her, feeling like complete doo-doo because I simply didn't know what to do in this situation. Maybe I could've told her to collect $8,000 and move to Europe, convert it to euros, and buy herself a Eurailpass that gives her unlimited free travel. Maybe I could've given her the website number of a public resource or agency that might have helped her with her dilemma. But to my dismay, I realized I must've left my iProg in one of my other purses, and since it was hot outside due to Global Warming, and a lot of that hot air was wafting into my limo, I had no choice but to close the window before I perspired so much that my makeup started to run.

It seemed like an eternity before Pedro came out with my lotto tickets, giving me plenty of time to watch as the woman shuffled dejectedly from one gas pump to another, asking each customer in turn to share his or her better fortune which was only the right and correct thing to do. I thought about what could have led her to such a pathetic pass.

Comrades, when this sort of thing goes on these days, we must admit to ourselves that the Cash for Clunkers program should've been extended indefinitely, for clearly this woman, surely through no fault of her own, was unable to take advantage of the program and get herself a car with a working gas gauge and a little warning light that lights up and chimes to let you know you'd better get thee anon to a gas station.

We must also admit to ourselves that because Big Oil makes billions in profit, that it should share those profits with the rest of us by allowing people like this woman free gas when she needs it. They can afford it, the rest of us can't!

We also need to face the irrefutable fact that private transportation, instead of making the masses independent, has only enslaved them to Corporate America, and that true freedom can only attained with more funds for public transit. Oh sure, it's nice to have your own car and be able to go wherever you want whenever you want, but at what price? Like crack dealers, they tempt you with these shiny pretty objects they call cars, and once you get one, they have you hooked and before you know it you're coming back to them for more.

More gas. More brake fluid. More anti-freeze. New tires. Fancy hubcaps. Mud flaps with naked women on them. Cars, cars everywhere, polluting the environment, and let's not forget the road rage!

We live in a sick society that puts crack dealers, when caught, in jail. I never hear about crack dealers making obscene profits, do you? I never hear about them destroying the planet, do you? And I sure as heck never hear about them taking advantage of unfair tax loopholes and bribing others to promote their evil agenda so they can reap even more profits at the expense of millions of innocent lives. Do you? So why are we jailing them and not the oil executives and automobile manufacturers?

By the way, if anyone out there knows that woman with the gas can, perhaps there is something we can do collectively to help her. Maybe we can wear ribbons and wristbands, or vandalize a few gas stations and torch some SUVs. What better way to raise awareness of how much we care during this most Progressive of months?

Your essay made me weep, Pinkie! Indeed, as long as some are riding in pink llimos and others panhandle at gas stations with empty gas cans, this country has no tight to exist.

The system is broken, Obama is trying to fix it, and the only thing that stands in his way and in the way of all those wonderful programs you have described, are the evil knuckle-dragging Republicans and Teabaggers who must be isolated from the society for the Greater Good™.

Therefore, repression of political opposition must become item #1 of the progressive agenda. And what better way to win public support for political repressions than with sentimental stories like what Pinkie just told us!

Comissarka Pinkie

I am overwhelmed by your deep and sincere Compassion for this lady!

My question, no the question EVERYONE SHOULD ASK is, why did the government not supply her with the needed gas?

What better way to help her than to raise awareness for the plight of her class by riots and mayhem? Maybe then your government will institute a Relief Program for the helpless people who Ran Out Of Gas Through No Fault Of Their Own.

By the way, it is a good thing you did not even consider the vile conservative idea of giving her some money from your own pocket! That would have interfered with her Basic Human Right to receive Gas Aid from the government!

Amandla!

Obamugabe

You had me a "pink limo".

I can feel her pain (just as long as I don't have to experience it, all is well. I will gladly donate someone else's money to help.)

Poor Obama. Always more and more Bush rejects who need government assistance. We need a Gas Czar . . . Gasoline Czar.

Pinkie, I think you should've taken your shovel and whacked one of the other customers senseless, rifled through his pockets until you found some money, then redistribute some of it to the poor woman (keeping a fair and most equal share for yourself).

Don't worry Pinkie. You won't have to endure this much more in the future. Now that Dear Leader has stopped oil drilling in the Gulf, and as soon as the cap and trade bill passes, it will ensure that gas will climb to $10 or $15 per gallon, and then women like this, and those who live from pay check to pay check will be forced to give up their cars altogether, thus leaving the highways free and clear for the rest of us, especially those of us who have government jobs* and make twice as much as everyone else. It's about time.

*not military jobs. Their salaries need to be slashed in half and they ought to be forced into public transportation like everyone else.

If there were an award given for truthiness (aren't awards "unfair"), this would receive the coveted Five Gas Can Award"

Someone need to be sending her to nearest illegal alien Mexican refugee campo. There she can to fill up with the beans that to be making the swastikas and then she to have plenty of the gas.

Commissarka Pinkie wrote: By the way, if anyone out there knows that woman with the gas can, perhaps there is something we can do collectively to help her. Maybe we can wear ribbons and wristbands, or vandalize a few gas stations and torch some SUVs. What better way to raise awareness of how much we care during this most Progressive of months?

1) Buy Carbon Credit offsets.
2) Ride your bicycle with your favorite fish.
3) Donate a loaf of Panera Bread to the local homeless shelter.
4) Drink only fair trade, eco-friendly coffee.
5) Boycott Arizona.
6) Distribute free condoms and syringes
7) Listen to The Mike Malloy Show and watch Alva Goldbook YouTube clips
8) Hope
9) Change
10) Yes We Can Still BLAME BUSH

I believe if we follow these ten simple steps, not only will we fill this woman's gas can, but we'll pay her mortgage, cure her cancer, stop the seas from rising, and end Global Warming™.

Ahhh....ummmm...ah...ahhhh....ummm.

Warming™.Ahhh....ummmm...ah...ahhhh....ummm."
warning label should have been, umm, ahh, much, err, ummm larger, ummmm, should it not'ov?
Huge apologies, but after attempting to listen to his glorious speech, I nodded off, so ummm, didn't hear, yawn, all ummmmm of it. Was there a point?

He sounds if he were a student of Barack's, way back in the day (dear Leaders usage of the terms "ummm" and "ahh" are so impressive). But I know what he meant (ummmm was trying to say) by all those supposed Pro-Lifers who still insist on killing murders in prison! Just most difficult to understand their lack of logic.

Ummmm....ahhhh....you know....ummm like us progressives are ummm...against like big government coming in and ummm taking away your reproductive rights but if...you...ahh..have elderly pets it's OK to euthanasia them like ummmm....a fetus like? Because ummm....only a fascist hates women and doesn't want them voting so ummm the death penalty shouldn't apply to serial killers because ummmm...they have elderly pets.

The point is ummm ....ahhh...progressive logic.
It's as flawless as our second favorite troll or Pinkie would not have made this new topic.

Ahh-ahh-Ahhlva um Goldbook: Uhhh-unplugged. Uhhhh-uh-unhinged? Uhhh-unscripted. Uhhh-uhhh-unashamed. Uhh . . . umm . . . mmmm . . . Mulva?
Instead of waterboarding terrorists, they should make them sit through the entire Alva Goldbook Video Collection. The minute any of them nod off, you blast them with one of his musical numbers.

Commissarka Pinkie - perhaps Obama Hood can take from the rich and give to the clueless?

Commissarka Pinkie wrote:Ahh-ahh-Ahhlva um Goldbook: Uhhh-unplugged. Uhhhh-uh-unhinged? Uhhh-unscripted. Uhhh-uhhh-unashamed. Uhh . . . umm . . . mmmm . . . Mulva?
Instead of waterboarding terrorists, they should make them sit through the entire Alva Goldbook Video Collection. The minute any of them nod off, you blast them with one of his musical numbers.

CRUEL AND UNUSUAL but I'd imagine damn effective.
Nobody expects the Alva Inquisition!

"Please Pinkie, not the Mulvanator again. I'll tell you anything you want to know. Here, here's the keys to Pup's Pleasure Palace, I'll tell you where the Chairman has been hiding. Here's Barack's birth certificate but PLEASE NOT THE MULVANATOR......Noooooooo! Sweet merciful Stalin, for the love of Lenin, I'm begging you, I confess!"

I believe Pinkie has come up with an effective tool for extracting confessions in the next show trial.Look at how fast Fraulein crumbled.

Laika the Space Dog wrote: I believe Pinkie has come up with an effective tool for extracting confessions in the next show trial.Look at how fast Fraulein crumbled.

*sniff, sniff* Pinkie, that warms my heart. Or it would if I still had one. Sucks to be disembodied like this... you are right though. The oil companies are raping the world and holding everyone under their control. Internal Combustion Engines are the tool of a corrupt order seeking to control us all.

That is why I like Palestine so much. People are poor, and happy. Except when they are being attacked, but otherwise they are happy in their simple little lives. You have discovered that joy Pinkie, I could see it when you showed how content you were with your pink limo, and how your heart went out to the poor woman oppressed by big oil. May Allah bless and keep you Pinkie.