George Bannister had read recently that the

U.S.

consumed roughly 18 million barrels of

oil

daily. He had been surprised that he didn't even know how many gallons of oil a barrel amounted to. He had simply gone his 40 odd something years accepting the barrel as a unit of measurement. Maybe because it was easy to picture. Not that he didn't know what a gallon looked like. He used

gallons

of liquids all the time. But he didn't imagine oil being poured out of milk containers. Instead he visualized oil in heavy, industrial barrels. When he learned that a barrel of oil contained 42 gallons, he quickly did the math. He had always been quick with mental math. Not the precise mental math akin to a calculator, but the approximate kind that was good enough for a human. He could calculate the tip at a restaurant bill in an instant. Not that he could calculate it to the exact amount, but he knew to get within 1 or 2 % of the target. When he did the math on the oil amount in gallons his country guzzled he gasped. Since then he had been thinking about waste.

He counted the number of

to-go cups

served by

Starbucks

during his visit. Exactly 172 in the the short five minutes Gordon Bannister sat awatch. He looked at his watch and wished five minutes was longer. It was all he needed to drink his triple 

espresso

with just a splash of cream. But he wondered how life would be if he could take the long lunches his 

employees

took. The thought filled him with a dose of jealousy, before he washed it off. Saying to himself that this was the cost of being a boss. Of owning his business rather than collecting a check. He checked his watch once more. It had been six minutes since he'd entered. Who knew how many to-go cups had been taken by customers in the extra minute he had spent here 

daydreaming

. It was time to head back to the office. The office he paid $6,200 a month for.