“So, do I need to pack anything for the kids?” a friend asked after I agreed to take her kids to the beach one day.

“Just some gas money,” I replied. She laughed out loud. I didn’t. “I’m serious,” I countered playfully, not wanting to seem rude, but needing her to get that I was not joking about it. She laughed again, kissed her kids and left.

This was not the first time I had taken her kids for an entire day. And I knew it would not be the last. As I work from home, I try to schedule time off to explore our city and all it has to offer with my kids. And because she can’t, on occasion, I take her kids. Truly, she is a lovely lady, but even my own sister and I make sure that we have trued-up on cash, expenses, etc., when we have each other’s kids for an extended amount of time. It’s never a big deal and is often met with “Don’t worry about it.” It is, however, an important sign of acknowledgment and awareness.

Now, with budgetary constraints and gas prices rising again, I am feeling the pinch around my fuel bills. From my house in the Valley to Zuma Beach is approximately 18.3 miles. To the Santa Barbara Zoo it is 65.7 miles. To Burbank: 15.4 miles. To Magic Mountain: 19.6 miles. To San Clemente: 84.3 miles. At today’s average gas price of $3.05 (for the cheap stuff) a gallon and a minivan that gets approximately 15 miles to the gallon (I know it’s not much, but it is what it is), those trips add up to 406.6 miles or 27.11 gallons of gas – which is $82.68 total round trip. For some perspective, that is the cost of my monthly phone bill and cable bill, both absolute necessities, combined.

I get where my friend is coming from. I have never (until now) added up how much it was going to cost me to drive anywhere before, much less ever asked her to cover gas expenses because her kids were coming along before. But with the economy in the state it’s in, with my budget for extracurricular activities in the pinch it’s in, and gas becoming more expensive (last year it hit $4.35 a gallon, which would make the cost of those trips $117.92), I think it’s only fair that the cost is shared, since I am invariably the one who does the driving.

As a competitive athlete growing up, there was a group of parents that took turns driving the kids to all the weekend meets throughout Southern California. Back then, regardless of the fact that the duties were shared, everyone’s parents gave us kids money for food and snacks and a specific amount of money for us to hand to the driver. Gas money. I don’t remember how much gas was at the time, but I do remember that it was significant enough that my parents bought themselves a diesel Peugeot to save on the cost of fuel. I took my driver’s license test in that car and years later, it was the car they could not sell or even give away. Diesel had failed. Gas lived on.

What will become of our situation today? A hybrid getting 45 miles to the gallon would almost save me enough money on a monthly basis to afford another car payment. But I am waiting it out. I am hanging on to my car because it is paid for, because it seats seven, and because the last saving grace to the fuel crisis of the 80’s turned out to be a burden to some.

So I will once again revive “Gas Money.” If asking nicely doesn’t work, perhaps I should just hand over an invoice? I’m not a petty or cheap person (quite the opposite really), but who else is going to look out for my interests but me? And truthfully, by not being aware and acknowledging the circumstances and offering to cover costs, who is being petty? Or cheap?