Welcome to the world of gas at $5.16 / gallon

So, yesterday the price of fuel in our area was $1.237 / L (that's $4.675 / US gallon). Today, it's $1.366 / L ($5.163 / gal). It spiked by 12.9 cents / L at midnight (48.8 cents / gal). No, the price of oil hasn't gone up that I know of, but the gas stations are using the excuse that it might, because there's a hurricane moving towards Texas.

We were among the fortunate who learned about this before it happened, but just barely. We happened to hit the evening news by accident while changing channels around 11:30 last night. We were all ready for bed, and just wanted to watch a few minutes of TV before turning in. The news, in their standard fear-mongering Chicken Little way, made sure that we all knew that this price spike was coming at midnight.

So, on went some clothes and away we went to the nearest station. The tank in the truck was over half full, and it only took 37.797 L (10 gal). We really only saved $4.88 by making a midnight run to the station. Minus however much fuel we burned by driving over there, of course, but it's not too far away. It's the principle of the thing.

I think I was the last one at that station who managed to get the Thursday price. After I finished pumping I looked up and saw the numbers on the sign spinning like the wheels on a slot machine. The price spike wasn't supposed to happen until midnight, but they did it at 11:49 PM. I could see the pimply-faced jerks employees of the station through the window. They were getting huge laughs from watching the reactions of people on the security monitors who just drove up expecting to get gouged at one price only to discover the new price now included 10% more gouging than it had just a few seconds ago. I checked some of the online news sites, and apparently some other stations got so caught up in their gleeful gouging spree that they just couldn't wait any later than 11:30 to apply the "after midnight" price.

Five years ago, if you had told me that I would be thinking of $1.237 / L ($4.675 / gal) as the cheap price, I would have said you were insane. Now I'm quite convinced that it's the entire world that's insane.