I may not have concrete proof for what I'm about to say, but I'm going to float a theory by you. Gas prices have gone up so much in the last year because we, as American consumers, are suckers.

The price per barrel of oil is at a 13-year high. A few weeks ago, that price passed $40 for the first time since Iraq invaded Kuwait when the other Bush was president. But gas, to the American consumer, is somehow about two-thirds more expensive than it was during that invasion. This is the beginning of my sucker theory.

For those of you who think microeconomics refers to paying for things with smaller bills, bear with me while I explain the economic theory behind why we're all getting, well, pumped.

The price of oil is set like the price of any other limited consumer good - the cost is determined by the price the company perceives it will cost to replace the goods they are selling. Thus, when Iraq first invaded Kuwait, the price of oil jumped because everyone was afraid of how high the price might be in the future.

This paranoia made sense - and a heck of a lot more sense than those cheapo "Bomb Sadaam" shirts everyone was wearing. (Like your mall t-shirt is going to influence our foreign policy). It made sense because Iraq, one of our enemies, invaded Kuwait, one of our allies. In 1990, Iraq and Kuwait accounted for about nine percent of America's oil supply. So if Iraq took Kuwait AND became hostile to us, the supply of oil would have been harder to come by. Afraid of that, oil companies raised the price of gas as the price of a barrel of oil went up.

But guess what happened? The price of the barrel dropped down once we sent in troops, and was cut in half once the only memory of the war was that "Proud to Be an American" song. Did the price at the pump go down? Of course not. We got used to paying as much as we were for gas, so the price simply leveled off. Are you starting to believe me about how we're suckers?

And in the past 10 years, the United States has been importing fewer and fewer barrels of oil from the Middle East. America now relies on Iraq for just 7% of our oil, and just 3% of our consumer oil. Still, if the oil companies were scared that it'd be more expensive to get oil next quarter, the prices would justifiably go up. But the oil companies are not scared. They're laughing. They're looking at us giving them all our money and laughing hysterically that we're doing it out of a blind sense of patriotism.

The price of oil should have gone up only when we first invaded Iraq. But it's gone up consistently for the last two years. Yet we're allegedly in control in Iraq now. Hell, we're in so much control, we have time to take prison pictures that could cost our president re-election (there's that silver lining).

Yet the price of oil is still rising. Because we're letting it. We hear terrorism and Middle East and oil prices rising and it all makes sense to us somehow. How? Because we're suckers.

Last year, Exxon-Mobil reported profits of over $21 billion. Iraq's estimated GNP is as low as $13 billion. In other words, Exxon-Mobil could have made this whole mess a lot simpler by acquiring Iraq.

Never mind that Vice President Cheney used to be the CEO of Haliburton, an unregulated monopoly that makes most of their money off of the rise in the cost of oil. Never mind that Saudi Arabia (our biggest supplier of oil) increased their production to help stave off the inflated prices. Never mind that the price of oil per barrel is roughly the same as it was just after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, yet by the end of the summer gas prices are anticipated to have doubled since then.

It would be hard to tell a company to charge less than consumers are willing to pay. If we never paid more than a product is worth, there'd be no Burberry or WNBA. But what's happening here is not good business - it's collusion. Oil companies are simultaneously artificially inflating the cost of their product, a practice in direct violation of every anti-trust act we've got on the books.

So while America lets these oil companies get away with everything, I am curious to know if we're being paid back. Lots of commercials tell us to sacrifice for the war. My question is, how much is Exxon-Mobil sacrificing? Are they paying a large sum towards the rebuilding of Iraq? They're certainly the ones directly profiting off of it.

There's not much we can do about the prices. We can't afford a boycott, and I know too many people I dislike to start carpooling. But we can make the oil companies explain themselves.

No matter who you're voting for and why, if you'd like an explanation as to why the current prices defy basic economic theory, why not ask for one? Print out this column and mail it to:

K.P. Cohen
VP Public Affairs
Exxon-Mobil
5959 Las Colinas Boulevard
Irving, TX 75039

And if Exxon-Mobil doesn't answer, maybe we can try Chevron-Texaco next - they only profited $7 billion last year.

No matter what we do, gas prices will not come down; gas prices never come down. But maybe if we all voice our concern, we can prevent them from rising any more than they already have. Of course, I could be wrong about all of this. I'm just floating a theory.

Sucker.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.

I have met a lot of people who say that they're actors. But the only acting they're doing is pretending to be an actor.

Have I acted? Yes. Am I an actor? No. Aside from some school productions, my parts have consisted of four extra roles (one of them unpaid), and a fifteen minute independent film. I have been a party guest, a crime scene onlooker, a concert-goer, a pedestrian, and a guy who gets his butt kicked. I was also on an episode of Ricki Lake, during which I was paid to make fun of people. The only role I ever play is myself. So if I thought I was really an actor, I'd be, well, playing myself.

This weekend, I shot two scenes in "Synergy," a forthcoming movie from Universal that stars Dennis Quaid along with a very well cast red-headed blurry thing in the background. I, with the 200 other people getting paid virtually nothing, was an extra. I was furniture with a mouth. This was not my big break.

But for the same crazy reason that draws people with no acting skills into acting, a lot of the people there thought that this was it. They brought headshots and did breathing exercises and talked about how they were hoping that this movie would be some good face time. As if a crowd scene at night in front of Madison Square Garden is going to give anyone good face time.

We were inconsequential. We were cattle. So much so that the area in which the extras wait between scenes is called "holding."

I felt bad for these people. They sat there expecting to get famous, while all the rest of us expected was $75 and a free meal. But some "actors" thought the director would come into holding, which he never does, and say, "Hey there. I like the cut of your jib. I'm going to make you a star. Start thanking the academy, baby, you're on your way."

It is true that every once in a while, one of the production assistants moves people up in a scene. It happened to me this weekend. Instead of walking in the background behind five other people, I was placed behind just two. On the way home, I stopped to buy some polish for my Oscar.

The delusions espoused by some of the cattle were hysterical. I heard some discussing how they were hoping to parlay roles like this into more feature work. Roles like what? Pedestrian #168?

One anecdote illustrates what level we were. When the staff brought out some food, one woman pushed her way up to the front of the line and started filling her plate with as much food as she could grab. A gentleman smiled at her and said, "hungry, huh?" The woman snapped at him, while still taking more food.

"Look, we all hungry," she said. "I hungry, you hungry. Don't say you ain't hungry. I just being real. Don't fake the funk. You gotsa be real."

My point is that this crazy woman was getting paid just as much as the rest of us to be in this movie.

I have fun doing extra work. And it'd be cool if I got any real gigs - but the two are mutually exclusive. Extra work is not acting. It's passing time and making a few bucks.

I know someone who is pretty good at plumbing. He constantly fixes stuff around his house. Occasionally, he helps his friends with projects. Someone even gave him a twenty for doing a great job. Does this make him a plumber? No.

I don't play softball and expect a scout to sign me to a minor league deal. I don't make pasta and wait by my phone for the call from Emeril. I don't talk about politics at a party and expect to win the Democratic Nomination. So why can so many people who have never had a line call themselves actors?

Real actors impress the hell out of me. Fake actors annoy me to no end. They should annoy you, too. Next time someone says they're an actor, find out if their greatest role involves the phrase "you have to look for me."

Anyone can do extra work. ANYONE. Look up an extra agency online, call them about an "audition," and pay the fee they ask for. It's that simple. Go for it - maybe it'll be your big break.

At one point during the shoot, a production assistant came over and took three people to be in direct line of the camera, just over Dennis Quaid's shoulder. One of them turned to the others and said, "this is it!" As the rest of us started laughing, I yelled, "don't blow this!" and sang Eminem.

You might think that's mean, but anyone that delusional needs to be grounded. And I was desperately trying not to fake the funk.

I mean, I gotsa be real, right?

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.

I was feeling stressed this past week. I'm in the process of moving, a few projects didn't go the way I planned, and with "Friends" gone, there's nothing to forget to watch on Thursday nights. So I visited my old campus during finals. Now I remember what stress really feels like.

At most colleges, finals are over by now. My old campus is no exception, as the last day for them was this past Thursday. But Tuesday afternoon, I was reminded that my life isn't all that bad. Because at least I'm not being tested on it.

I visited my old fraternity house, and I'm still young enough to know some of the guys. So I went from room to room to say hello, and I got one of two reactions. Either the guy was uber-stressed and was thankful for the five minute break my hello gave him, or he was uber-stressed to the point where he didn't even notice that I'm normally not there.

"Hey Steve. Can't really talk, I'm studying."

"That's cool. You know I graduated two years ago, right?"

College finals are a unique animal (though they are somewhat similar to rabid badgers). I know people who work 80-hour weeks in the finance sector, where their jobs could lose people millions of dollars. And none of them are as stressed as they were when they were taking finals. Part of that is because talking about being stressed during finals week is cool.

Stress is a mental condition, brought on by actual stress inducing factors, and worsened by a lack of time management. My worst semester, I had six finals in three days. Yet I still got eight hours sleep each night. Why? Because the day before finals week started, I uninstalled Instant Messenger from my computer. Otherwise I would have spent the most difficult week of the year, staying up until 6 AM chatting about how stressed I was.

I am now a standup comedian, so when I go to sleep Sunday night, it's with the express purpose of waking up by Tuesday. I rarely have to set an alarm, so one of my favorite things to do is to stay up during finals week and wait for my younger friends to IM me about how much work they're not doing for finals.

"It's awful," they say. "I have gotten three hours of sleep in the last two weeks! Now check out this website I found."

A large number of people I know have jobs in the fields they want to be in. It may not be the job they want, it may be a crappy salary, and it may even be in a place they have no family or friends. But the work they're doing is at least related to an interest of theirs. And that's the worst part about finals - that often you're studying something you care nothing about.

I took a class my sophomore year in American Sports History. We looked at gender, class, and race in America through the lens of sports; even though I am a huge sports fan, it was a very difficult class. But studying for finals was never that much fun. I remember sitting outside with a friend who was in the class with me, studying separately for other exams. Every fifteen minutes or so, one of us would stop and say, "hey, wanna study sports again?"

The main thing that got me through finals was my countdown clock. When I had four or fewer days left, I calculated the remaining hours until I'd be all done, and draw them on my wipe-off board. Every hour or two (okay, hour) I'd change the countdown. I knew that no matter what happened in those hours, when that clock ran out, it'd be too late to worry about it. And I could use Instant Messenger again.

I've thought of studying in my post-grad life. Studying things I'm interested in, like sports or comedy or Instant Messenger. But then I remember how much I hated studying, and I watch TV instead. That is my right as someone who has already taken all his finals. That is also what is preventing me from ever going to grad school.

Though if there was a graduate degree in Instant Messenger, I'd think about it.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of Student Body Shots, which is available at www.SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@observationalhumor.com.

By now anyone who cares about what happened on the last episode of Friends knows the results. I was a bit shocked - I didn't think the writers would have Ross end up with Monica.

Okay, so that didn't happen. Ross got together with Rachel again, which is lame cause it's happened several times already. Why not have Rachel and Monica declare THEIR love for each other? Now that'd be television.

I am a casual Friends viewer, meaning I only watch it when it's on in syndication seven times a day. I haven't been able to follow the storyline this season because I don't care, but I have noticed that having a Friend in a movie is usually the kiss of two thumbs down. (The Whole Nine Yards being the obvious exception). And now that the series is over, we may see more Friends appearing on the big screen. Hopefully without monkey co-stars (I'm looking at you, Matt LeBlanc).

I was working the night of the finale, so I only saw the last five minutes. Which was like watching the last five minutes of a basketball game. I pretty much figured out what happened earlier just by the last few shots. And the last episode of Friends had about as much plot as the next Bulls/Clippers game. (In which I fully expect Ross to end up with Rachel).

I should correct myself - the last five minutes of the finale of Friends were not completely important. Just that fifth to last minute. The final four minutes were spent having the cast look around the set and make obvious call backs to jokes from previous episodes.

I've seen the last episodes of a few other NBC shows - Seinfeld, Cheers, and Mad About You (I couldn't find the remote and I was REALLY sick).

I don't remember what happened on the final episode of Mad About You because I was concentrating on not dying. And Cheers ended marginally. It was cool that Diane came back, but the end was so anti-climactic I actually fell asleep. When I woke up, I said, "what happened?" and my brother responded, "nothing." I thought he was just messing with me, but I saw it again a few years later and he was right.

The merits of the final episode of Seinfeld have been debated ever since it aired. Some people loved it. Most hated it. But the big fans of the show, myself included, enjoyed it for a few reasons. We got to see all the characters we loved from previous episodes (even Keith Hernandez!) and the end was so bizarre that it was memorable. It would have been too easy to have the four stand around Jerry's apartment or Monk's Coffee Shop or some such set and say, "we're really going to miss it here." Aww, you're tapping into what the audience is obviously feeling. Not all that clever, albeit overdone.

Seinfeld fans also really liked the end because the conversation about George's button was the same conversation from the first episode. The writers recognized that the humor of the show was not in the ongoing plot, but in staying true to some of the most ridiculous characters ever created for public consumption. The writers of Friends instead relied on their viewership's desire to watch a soap opera with better jokes.

I usually enjoy watching Friends when I have no choice, and it is much better than a lot of the other "sitcoms" people like. Anyone could write the scripts for a full season of Will and Grace. Just watch the previous season and recycle the same jokes the writers already recycled from the season before that. But I am not sad that Friends is over. It did not change the sitcom format like Seinfeld did, and it should not be revered by any TV historians in the future, even while they're doing research projects to find out what happened to Matt LeBlanc's career. (I'm looking at you, monkey). Friends was on for ten years, and it was good, but that's it. It entertained us and now it's over, with not much of a lasting impression left.

We will eventually discover whether or not Friends was a good show by the actors' ability to get successful work afterwards. If you can move beyond a character, it wasn't all that memorable. The central Cheers and Seinfeld casts have done hardly anything following the end of their shows. (You can't count spin-offs, cartoons, or terrible shows named "Becker"). Mad About You, on the other hand, is not lasting. Helen Hunt is a major movie star because no one cares that she was Jamie Buckman. And I know what you're saying. Jamie who?

We'll wait and see if any of the Friends can break out of the roles they kind of successfully made us occasionally care about. And if not, there's always a reunion special.

I bet Ross will end up with Rachel.

Almost all of my favorite movies were made in the late 1980s. I don't know if it's because that's when I grew up, or it's just a coincidence, or I really like Velcro.

Whatever the reason, I love late 80s movies. Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Breakfast Club and Field of Dreams were some of the best flicks ever made, and they were not ruined by tons of nonsensical sequels (I'm looking at you, Batman). The problem with having no sequels, however, is that we have no way of finding out what happened next. Until now.

We can now discover what happened to some of the best movie couples of all time, thanks to a special invention called the "humor column."

Ferris Bueller and Sloan Peterson, Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Ferris enrolls at the University of Wisconsin while Sloan finishes her senior year at Shermer High. But plans for Sloan to join him in Madison are derailed when Ferris is expelled for an elaborate scheme to ditch classes. In hindsight, it would have been easier for him to just not show up, like all the other college students. Ferris takes a year to "find himself" in Europe before becoming a fry cook at Venus - a strip club on Chicago's South Side.

Maverick Mitchell and Charlie Blackwood, Top Gun
Now that Maverick and Charlie are both Top Gun instructors, school is in session - love school, that is. Especially when the academy starts admitting female cadets. It turns out that Maverick hadn't changed his stripes (badum!) when Charlie catches him with a new student - in their special elevator!

Josh Baskin and Susan Lawrence, Big
Susan is forced to register herself as a sex offender for sleeping with a 13-year-old boy. Josh spends the next year wishing for girls his age to have grown breasts already, and finally runs away with Susan on his 14th birthday. With the help of Zoltan, the two begin their own company: making toys for more mature consumers.

Claire Standish and John Bender, The Breakfast Club
The couple lasts through the end of senior year and Claire going off to college. But when Claire comes back for Thanksgiving Break, she and John reveal that they've both been "considering" other people. They break up, and don't speak until Brian Johnson organizes a ten year Breakfast Club reunion. At the reunion, it is discovered that John was right - Claire is a fat girls name.

Harry Burns and Sally Albright, When Harry Met Sally
Harry and Sally spend the first few years madly in love, before things start leveling out. It's nothing to divorce over, but there is a definite rut. Problems escalate when Sally says, "you never take me out to eat and fake orgasm anymore."

Ray and Annie Kinsella, Field of Dreams
After making hundreds of millions on their new tourist trap, the Kinsellas purchase the Montreal Expos and move them to Des Moines. Ray's big plans for improving the team are stopped, however, when commissioner Bud Selig extends Shoeless Joe Jackson's lifetime ban to cover returning from the grave. The Kinsellas eventually sell the Expos and use the rest of their money to hire James Earl Jones to follow them around and announce their names in a deep voice.

Adam and Barbara Maitland, Beetlejuice
After seeing Lydia off to college, Adam and Barbara get bored and start experiencing empty haunted nest syndrome. But they get a second chance to be ghost parents when Lydia is arrested for shoplifting.

Baby Houseman and Johnny Castle, Dirty Dancing
Nobody puts Baby in the corner, except herself when she realizes that she has been cornered into a relationship with Johnny. And after the Housemans accept Johnny for what he is, the attraction fizzles and she breaks up with him. Johnny spends the next few years having sex with everyone he can in a desperate attempt to forget almost landing a rich chick, while Baby must find new and more creative ways to get back at her parents.

I realize that I have most of these couples breaking up - but that's because it's a humor column and not a movie. If we made a bunch of sequels instead, everyone would end up together. Except in the Batman movies, where no one remembers the chick he was with in the last film.