GAS PUMP REVOLT OIL BARONS ARE GOUGING AT THEIR RISK.

Byline: Samantha Kimmel LOCAL VIEW

MY friend Lori, normally the most placid and pleasant of people, is ticked off. Did I say ``ticked off''? I mean royally ticked off. Supremely ticked off.

What has upset Lori, who is rarely ruffled in the face of any and all sorts of obstacles and job stresses? Is it crime in the streets? Is it the downward spiral of the economy? Is it the puzzling reappearance of Fox Mulder on ``The X-Files''?

Nope. You see, several years ago, Lori bought into the hype and moved to Valencia. Where, she was told, housing was cheaper, schools were better, neighborhoods safer.

She loves it there; it's practically paradise.

However, the fact she lives in Valencia and works in Burbank has become an epic thorn in her pocketbook: it's a 62-mile round trip. Even though Lori drives a sensible sedan, that drive eats up a lot of fossilized dinosaurs.

But what really gets Lori's goat? The fact Californians, Floridians, Oregonians, Indianans, et al, are lining up at the pumps like sleepy sheep, and dumping their wheelbarrows full of baksheesh into the greedy maws of the oil mavens.

She asked me, eyes blazing, face reddening (I imagine Patrick Henry looked a lot like this), ``Where's the outrage? Why are we just doing this?''

She pointed a finger in the general direction of east. ``They are raising the prices for no good reason! The supply is the same as it was six months ago. They can't fool me. There was no increase in their production costs. Why are we letting them take advantage of us! Why aren't we complaining?''

So I asked her, with utter impartiality like a good journalist (even though her blood-boiling fury was darned catchy), to whom would we complain?

``Them,'' she said.

Who's them? I asked.

``The newspeople,'' she said with stunning simplicity. ``The papers and the Web sites and magazines and the 'Good Day L.A.'s.' ''

Her color had taken on a frightening purplish hue. ``We need to tell them, we need to make them stop this rampant greed on the part of the Big Oil companies. And we need to take those guys out behind the woodshed.''

I was delighted at the thought of Lori with Dick Cheney and pals bent over her lap, a nice thick rose switch in her hand, bringing it down on the cushy backsides of the new robber barons, paddling heinies until they cry, ``You're right! We're evil! We're screwing everybody! Gas will henceforth be 69 cents a gallon, and we'll still make obscene profits!''

Why are we taking this? Why are the streets not filled with irate motorists, honking their horns and brandishing placards saying things like, ``Money Hungry Thieves Sticking Us Up At The Pumps!'' and ``We're Mad As Hell and We're Not Gonna Pay $2.50 a Gallon Any More!''

The oil guys tell us that the ``shortage'' has caused an ``inevitable'' rise in petrol costs.

Excuse me? If that is so, where are the lines of cars ringing our streets, waiting their turn at the nozzle, lines ubiquitous during the real oil crunch of the mid-'70s? (I was an ``odd,'' by the way.) I see no lines. When I pull into Costco for a fill-up, I slide right in, open a vein, bleed into the ATM machine, and cruise right back out. Shortage? Please.

Indeed, where is the outrage? Have we not been pushed hard enough? Is the fact that six months ago gasoline was $1.29 per gallon and now the price has nearly doubled with absolutely no justification not enough reason for us to take up our torches and our truncheons and go marauding through the villages, seeking out the monster mavens of fuel production?

I think it's going to happen, and happen soon. So, Big Oil, take heed. I have a feeling there are many, many Loris out there, purple-faced with rage, bearing truncheons with your names on them, and the woodshed is only steps away.