The Price of Gas

WICHITA, Kansas - Nothing gets my mother going like a change at the gas pump.

"Did you see what the price is today?" she says, beginning a typical rant. "Every time I turn around they knocked it up again. Third time this week. $2.14. It's ridiculous."

I find this strange coming from someone who lived through the great gas shocks of 1973 and 1979 (when gas was more expensive than now and cars much less efficient), but she's not the only one. We dutifully write stories as the prices creeps up here in Wichita, interviewing outraged customers and unapologetic gas station attendants ("we're barely getting by," they all say). In the past I would just let these conversations roll on, waiting until they inevitably shifted to the weather before saying anything. A couple things have caused me to shift my track.

*Wichita's Strange Prices Gas doesn't jump here three times a week, but when it does the rises are quite large. They usually happen late in the week, too. Last Friday it jumped from $2.75 to $2.99. This Friday the jump was from $2.91 to $3.09. After the jumps, inevitably it begins to float down again. It might be a week or two, but than it shoots up again. It's hard to predict. Like Russian Roulette, you never know if spinning another round will mean you get stuck with the gas bill. Graph the price at wichitagasprices.com over three months if you want to see what I mean.

*Driving More I have to go places for work, to chemical spills, county fairs and everywhere in between. So the pump is on my mind more than when I lived in Boston. For three years, I didn't have a car. This year I did, although I spent around $7 a week on gas, even when it was over $2 a gallon. It's a large portion of my income now, so it's obvious that I think about it more.

*Sweeps I love a guessing game. And talking with people about how the Israel-Lebanon Crisis, refineries in Texas and falling demand for cereal products will affect the gas prices is great fun. The truth is, no one really knows why the price jumps from week to week as it does. This micro plus macro analysis is almost impossible to figure out, especially from someone who slept through the only economics course he took in his life. But who cares? I love to bullshit.

So now, during my weekly phone call home, I often find myself looking forward to the time when gas comes up in the conversation. I guess I truly am turning into my parents.