Sometimes, when driving into Los Angeles airport, there's a policeman screening the cars, stopping the occasional one to ask questions.
Every so often, one of these drivers either gets the answers wrong or, maybe, sweats too much, and is waved over to the side. There, two large, flak-jacketed policemen and a German shepherd on a leash take over.
One of the benefits of driving a little red cheerful-looking car is that I'm usually waved through without question. Put me in a black Lincoln Navigator, on the other hand, and they'll shut the airport down.
But recently, going to the airport to pick up some friends, the policeman stopped me. I wound down my window and prepared for the barrage of questions -ones that beg a clever answer, but can never be given one.
Questions of the "did you pack this suitcase yourself?" variety. The policeman leaned forward. "So, what's the gas on this?" he asked.
He meant the fuel consumption, and it's a question we are hearing more and more. Small cars, laughed away as silly European fancy, or not even noticed as a car in the first place, are getting more attention in the US.
Jumps in the price of fuel are accompanied by a flurry in the news as worried-looking TV reporters stand in front of petrol stations, and the paper fills with letters, editorials and articles.
Even the comics join in with jokes about legalised robbery at the pump or exaggeration-based humour on how much a full tank costs.
Visible results
There are visible results as well. We've noticed fewer cars on the freeways, and several people have written to the paper about commutes being cut by a few minutes.
Even though it's getting hotter, there seem to be more motorcycles, and there are suddenly little motor scooters putt-putting around all over.
Reports say that public transportation is running fuller and there is, apparently, a great interest in bicycles. I'm sure you read the other day about GM announcing that the largest-ugliest car brand on the road is available to anybody who wants it.
Meanwhile, the smallest-ugliest car, with all its geeky hybridism is suddenly looking very attractive to a lot of people. (On the subject, the Los Angeles Times reported a funny inversion in Beverly Hills.
In rich houses, it used to be that the owners drove the big SUVs and the maids drove the small cars. These days, the owners drive the small hybrids, and the maids drive the big SUV's - the latter currently the most affordable used cars on the road since nobody wants them.)
All of this becomes even funnier when you look at the actual price per litre. After all those horrendous increases, Americans pay about $1.20 a litre. Back home, Bangaloreans pay just under $1.40. In England, their backs are being broken at about $2.30 a litre.
And, as energy gets harder to put into American cars, energy to put into Americans themselves becomes an issue too. With the news full of stories of cutbacks, belt tightenings and mini-recessions, one of the most inadvertently funny, and alarming, stories was about spam.
Not the e-mail variety, but the original strange meat in a tin. As the prices of staples go up, spam sales are also on the rise. (I'm imagining a Monty Python future, when you can drive down to Denny's and, with a straight face, order "spam, spam, spam, spam, eggs and spam".)
With fuel-price drops highly unlikely, all we can hope for is that the spam-eaters are the same ones who are buying bicycles to commute to work. Not very likely though, is it?
Gautam Raja is a journalist based in the US.
