Gassed up

Can someone please explain to me how it is that I can sleep an extra half hour, stop to fill a mostly empty gas tank (note that the first place I tried wasn't open yet) and run through a drive through and still make it to work fifteen minutes earlier than usual?  There must have been a shift in the space-time continuum.

Speaking of gas prices - yikes.  The last time I filled up (sometime in mid-December, I think), gas was $2.95 a gallon.  A day later, it climbed to $3.05.  What I've noticed around town lately is about $3.15; I paid $3.09 this morning.

Some pundits are yammering about four and five dollars per gallon within the next year or so.  Honestly, I'm beginning to think prices only rise and fall (mostly rise)based on rumor and wild guesses, rather than actual cost of goods.

For the last several years, we've funded various commissions charged with investigating why Wisconsin, and the Milwaukee area in particular, always has prices a nickel or more higher than the rest of the nation.  The answer has always been a collective shoulder shrug.  Between our laws requiring a funky formula gas, and the antiquated and no longer needed minimum mark-up law, we can't seem to catch a break.

I'm thankful for little mercies; had I not been so early, the first place at which I stopped would have been open, charging a good six cents a gallon more than I ultimately paid.  While sixty-six cents won't even get a cup of bad coffee, it's nice to save at least a little bit.