On Monday, April 20, oil fell to below zero dollars per barrel for the first time in history as oilfield producers struggled to find storage for incoming production.
DO NOT put that barrel of oil under your pillow. Under normal circumstances, the oil fairy (John Rockefeller, greased up in petrochemicals) would leave you between $50 and $120 under your pillow in exchange, but if you make the mistake of leaving that barrel under your pillow now, he actually removes $40 from your wallet just to take it off your hands. He’ll also divide your Etsy business up into 34 separate entities to hide it from the trust-busters, but that happens no matter what price oil is.
DO invest in companies exploring alternative energy solutions, such as General Electric (GE), Chevron (CVX), and my cousin’s cannabis farm, WEEDENERGY, currently unlisted on NASDAQ due to a failed IPO (mainly because my cousin thought it stood for Ingesting Pot Opportunity and promptly forgot to file the paperwork). If WEEDENERGY’s R&D department gets off the couch this year, they say they’re experimenting with ways to use marijuana as a replacement for oil—although there’s a high likelihood they just mean hemp oil.
DO NOT send a barrel of oil to your grandkids as a birthday present. We’ve all been there: you want to get something nice for Johnny to celebrate his 14th, but since sending a check for $25 screams “unimaginative,” you ship him a barrel of hot, sweet crude. Now is not the time. Sure, your grandson will text you a few months later to say a belated thanks for sending him the oil, but it’s just going to sit in his nightstand unused because his parents make him feel bad for cashing your oil out when you’re on a fixed income and very fixed petrochemical production schedule (0 barrels per day).
DO continue to not invite your coal friends to your fancy galas. It doesn’t matter if you’re not turning a profit on the hydrocarbon market right now. All of your friends who chose to invest in Big Coal are still just a bunch of swamp pirates who will never know the finer things in life, like the taste of aged French wine or the scent of lobster thermidor—not because they can’t afford it, but because the strip-mining has burned out the sensory fibers in their nostrils and tongues.
DO NOT pay your landlord in barrels of crude. No matter how tempting it is to use your surplus of black gold to cover your rent in these lean times, the only liquid most renters accept payment in is high-octane refined gasoline or—if you watch the same websites I watch—certain other bodily fluids.
DO send a Facebook message to the Saudi kid you met in college who you were kinda cool with and let him know you’re here for him. When oil bounces back, he’ll remember your kind efforts. He’ll also remember you mistaking him for the other Saudi kid you know, which probably won’t reflect as positively on you.
DO NOT get the old band back together. This has nothing to do with oil, but I thought you could use the reality check anyway, Dale.
DO register the domain name and business license for TexasTea.biz and launch your own line of oil-themed hard seltzers—tagline “Barrels of fun; refine responsibly”—because they’re all the rage right now and still a better investment than Schlumberger, Marathon, or Halliburton.
DO NOT Venmo your friends the cash equivalent of what you owe them in gallons of fossil fuel, telling them it’s “an investment.” It doesn’t matter if it’s true; it’s annoying, and also this is like the fifth time you “forgot” your wallet when we went out to eat. If you need us to spot you, just be honest, man.
DO write to the Nigerian oil prince whose emails you’ve been ignoring for years and advise him that for a one-time, immediate Western Union transfer of $1500 to your account, you can relieve him of his vast repository of useless barrels of crude, but that he has to act fast before his assets are seized!