Tuesday, September 23, 2008

A sign of the times

I drove past an Arco gas station on my way to pick up the kids from preschool, and I noticed that the price for regular unleaded was $3.56/gallon. That is the cheapest I have seen it anywhere around here since the high of $4.47 back in July.

I picked up the kids and took them home. About an hour later, I made a quick check of Drudge just to see what was going on in the world, and I saw a news item about the price of a barrel of oil closing at $16 higher than it did yesterday. With that in mind, I piled the kids back into the car and went back to that Arco station to top off my 1/4 full tank before the prices begin to presumably spiral back up within the next couple of days.

It's so funny that once upon a time, I really didn't give the price of gas a second thought. For years, it hovered in the low to mid $1 range, and that was all there was to it. Now, I check the price of a barrel of oil in the same fashion that I check the weather to see what the temperature will be today: Whoa! It's going to be 96 degrees today; I'd better wear a short-sleeve shirt. Whoa! A barrel of oil dropped below $100 yesterday; I'd better go fill the tank.

Sigh.

Good Day to You, Sir

3 comments:

Don, American Idle said...

When I was a child, bargain gas was five gallons for a dollar. By the early 70s, it had surged to
$.36 a gallon. Then, the "shortage" struck, and it's been Katey-bar-the-door ever since. Somebody's always playing with us. If we went to war for oil,as the Democrats would have us believe, why didn't we just take it?

Larry Sheldon said...

Can't answer Don's question.

Biggest thing seems to be "people are willing to pay it..."

"Terror Free Oil" leading the pack down at 3.389--most of the pack at 3.429 or thereabouts.

http://tinyurl.com/3u6njg

Mrs. Bluebird said...

Lucky you! I live in Middle Tennessee, and due to Hurricane Ike, we've got shortages! About 85% of Nashville's stations were completely out, people are following gas tankers, and we've seen prices around $4.65 and up. Fortunately, I live close enough to the Kentucky border (and they get their gas from Illinois and Indiana) so I can hope across the border, find gas, and pay nearly $0.50 less. Less than two miles away gas is out...weird.