24 cents in one day

So I was driving to work this morning, expecting the price at a convenience store on my route to be $2.099 or something like that. But as I got close enough to see what was going on, a guy had taken down the "0" and replaced it with a "3." So I went to the next store, where the price was still $2.099, and bought $10 worth. My wife was with me, so after I went in to work, she got enough money out of the bank to fill up the car before prices went up everywhere.

I couldn't understand what was happening. I mean, we didn't shoot at anybody over the weekend. Then this afternoon, I found this on the AP business wire:

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices slipped Monday, wavering above $55 a barrel as traders took profits, but the losses were limited by forecasts of more cold weather across the U.S. East Coast. An unusually warm winter in the U.S. drove crude oil below $50 a barrel earlier this month, but the price has since risen about 10 percent as cold weather returned. Forecasters predicted below-normal temperatures on the U.S. East Coast would continue into at least the first week of February. The Northeast accounts for 80 percent of heating oil use in the country, the Energy Department says.

Oh yeah, cold weather. That beats my next best theory, that marketers have had slim profits lately because of low prices, and they needed to get their cash flow improving.

Whenever anyone asks me to explain the ups and downs of gasoline prices around here, which seem to have no rhyme or reason, I repeat what an oil company spokeswoman told me a few years ago: We charge what the market will bear.