See what happens?

So, due to various factors (dealing with pregnancy fatigue and morning sickness, the holiday stress, being on the threshhold of hell with regards to my marriage, and general laziness) I haven't posted ANYTHING on, or even been monitoring the Bloop for what seems like eons. Weeks, it's been, actually.

Usually, I keep an eagle-eye on the price of crude oil. I don't know why. Seriously, the price jumped between its all-time trading high of $99.29 and its mid-December niceties in the low-$90 range, and in November even dropped back into the $80s. Yet the actual price at the pump really didn't fluctuate all that much. Two weeks ago, I filled up for $2.71 a gallon, a darn good price if you ask me (trying hard not to think that it was $1.47 in 2000, and I remember $0.99 in the mid-1990s). Two weeks before that, I filled up for $2.72 a gallon. It really wasn't moving, so I started to lose interest.

For the longest time, all the doomsayers went on and on about how it would hit $100 a barrel by the end of the year (2007, that was). I believed it, then I saw all the prices drop, and my little "Pain In The Gas" doo-hickey over there to your right never got its thingie lit up anymore (the thingie that says ***Indicates new record high). So, yawn, I started thinking, like every other American sheep in the fold, eh, it'll never happen. And it didn't.

It waited until the 2nd day of 2008 to hit $100 a barrel. That was yesterday. I missed it.

So now, in trading, it is around $99.50, hovering there steadily, tap-dancing all over the previous trading high, and yesterday it hit $100.09 in trading, touching on $100 again today. What made me check was that I noticed I need gas again this morning (living closer to work now, I fill up every two weeks, give or take, which has been mighty helpful to the ol' checkbook). I smiled quietly to myself and thought of how it only takes $60 to fill up my lovely red truck, blissfully refusing to remember the $75 I dumped for a tank last May when the price at the pump was a staggering $3.04 a gallon. As I drove past RaceTrac, I wondered if I would have the $60 left over after paying the rent, and I glanced up at the sign... and my quiet smile faded. $2.71 was gone! Now it was $2.88! HUH?? Further down the street, at Citgo (where I won't stop anyway) it was $2.94! WTF?

Upon arriving at work, I read the $100 a barrel news, and now I know why. The holidays are over, the oil companies know we have nothing else to spend our money on (you know, rent and food and electricity are such trivial things!) and so they're raising the prices at the pump to reflect the price per barrel. They're blaming some sort of production shortage in Mexico and violence in Venezuela. Of course, if not for that, they'd be blaming the toenail fungus of a major political figure in Uzbekistan. It's always something.

So, I paid my rent today, giving me $104 to make it through the next two weeks. (Only because I saved $150 from my last check to begin with... one whole check isn't enough for the rent.) Now the $60 gas allotment isn't going to give me a full tank. I guess I will have to be satisfied with whatever it DOES give me. The remaining $44 has to go to diapers and maybe some bread, maybe not. Apple juice, possibly... the kids like that stuff. Milk is free... thank goodness for WIC.

One good bit of news - I took Jerm's advice. The man who breathes the air and eats the food at home still hasn't gotten a job... so I shut off his internet. Booya.