One day soon, you will be headed down Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh, and you will see a lanky bearded man standing before a giant pile of lumber, and you will stop to talk to him.

"What are you doing, sir?" you will say.

"Uh...well, I'm preparing. Getting ready to build an ark," he'll say.

"What for?"

"Look, let me just put it this way. You know how sometimes you see guys walking around with signs that say, 'The end is near'? Well, they're not kidding."

As evidence that such a conversation is inevitable, friends, let us note herein that in recent days, the price of gasoline -- premium, at least, which is what I have to run in my 10-year-old Caddy -- has climbed solidly over $2 a gallon and that milk is over $4.

At a station out of town, I knew something was up, literally, when a couple of guys came piling out to the self-serve pump and offered to check my tires, wash the 'shield and look under the hood. Then I caught the $2-plus on the gas. They went back inside. I followed later.

"Hey fellas, I need some help."

"Yes sir! What can we do for you?"

"I work for a newspaper, and I think I can get a worldwide exclusive interview here."

"Really? Who you want to talk to?"

"John Dillinger. Apparently, he survived to old age and bought a chain of gas stations."

I don't think they got it. And the truth is, don't blame your neighborhood gas guys for this literal highway robbery, or even the station owner. The culprits reside in OPEC board rooms and in those of oil companies. (OPEC, for those who are not familiar with complicated international issues, means in translation, "Boy, have we got the idiot Americans.")

Whether the fact that we have two oil industry guys in the White House has anything to do with...did we call it "highway robbery" yet?..remains to be seen. If President Bush is not doing well in the polls come October, don't be surprised if regular unleaded drops to about 75 cents a gallon.

In any case, one can react to events such as this with anger, with sadness, or with creativity. As in a blues song:

"Took my kids out this mornin'

"For a ride in my SUV...

"Traded 'em my son for a fill-up

"But got the car wash for free...

"Yeah, I've got the gas price blues

"Can't get the baby some new shoes

"Between food and gas we gotta choose

"So my darlin' will be hungry tonight..."

But you won't be missing any dairy products if you're pouring the food budget in the gas tank. As gasoline prices were climbing, so were those of milk. Again, we of this space do not claim to understand the fine points of whatever monetary or ecological crisis has brought this about, but apparently there is a worldwide shortage of cows. Therefore, a gallon of milk now runs over $4, to which we say, let's hope this doesn't give the oil companies any ideas.

When I bought my first gallon of $4 milk, the cashier looked at the jug quizzically, and then looked at me, and said, "Is this right?" To which I replied, "Well, now you've asked an interesting question there. Do you mean 'right' as in mathematically correct? Or do you mean 'right' as in a discussion of a larger philosophical issue?" He didn't want to discuss it anymore.

The bottom line, one supposes, is that cows are the OPEC of the milk world. This assumes you do not prefer that health-food type milk, which is sort of like liquefied chalk. Unless you like it, in which case, more power to you.

Where does all this fit in the world of politics and are these things likely to become campaign issues? Well, the president, as we said, is an oil man, though he never made much money at it, and so is Vice President Cheney. But some years ago, tree-hugging Democrat John Kerry apparently suggested that a big gasoline tax might be a really good idea for environmental reasons, so he can't really get much mileage, so to speak, out of criticizing gas prices.

I don't know where all the candidates stand on milk. But right now it doesn't matter, as the country seems to be more in the mood for whiskey.