This cartoon was inspired by three separate stories:

Smartphones heeding the call of consumers

Apple unveils new iPhone

and National average for gas breaks $4

Now, I would love to carry around the new iPhone, looking trendy and geeking out with its GPS, blogging software, cappuccino frothing wand and such, but there’s no way I can afford it without being financially reckless. So, while others are strutting their stuff with their handy-dandy, slick smartphones, I’m cursing the mysterious beings deviously manipulating the nation’s gas prices.