Unleaded

Does anyone else know how egregious gas prices are?  No, seriously.  The price per barrel of oil fluctuates at a daily rate.  Why?  Because the so-called powers that-be profess it to be so.  Liberalists and Green Parties  wave an admonishing finger at the very notion of drilling on American soil (with the exception of Alaska), thus keeping us from weaning ourselves from suckling the teat of foreign oil.  When the price per barrel goes up, not only do gas prices rise, but everything becomes more expensive.  Oil is used in damn near everything.  Production of plastics.  Factories.  Textile plants.  Farms.  Butchers.  Bakers.  Everyone everywhere relies on oil in some way, shape, or form.  Interesting side note:  How come when the price of gas goes down, the price of a gallon of milk holds steady at the price it was raised from the previous one.  People gripe about how much gas is.  But, at least there's a fifty-fifty chance gas will be cheaper tomorrow (statistics are bullshit, 7 out of 15 people know that.  When you break it down, everything is fifty-fifty; either something will happen or it doesn't).  That gallon of milk.  Those flashy new kicks.  A pack of smokes.  All that other stuff doesn't fluctuate in price like gas, it just continues to escalate.

This is just a theory.  I have no proof or evidence to back this up.  But I believe that one of the main reasons gas prices undulate like the tides, is so that when we drive past a gas station, and see unleaded advertised for $3.86 a gallon, we smile and say, "Oh, look, gas went down."  Then we cruise into the packed station at two miles-an-hour, wait for fifteen minutes before actually getting to use a pump, and fill up.  I don't do that.  But, apparently a lot of people do.  I buy gas when it's slightly more expensive; it's an even trade-off for the time I save.  In and out.  Easy-peasy.
 
There's a scene in the movie, "I Am Legend", where Will Smith is driving down some street and passes a gas station that advertises a gallon of unleaded for over $6.  And I'm guessing that was before the-end-of-the-world-as-Will-Smith's-character-knew-it.  Just my opinion, but I really don't see someone changing the gas sign of their own volition as New York turned into Hell in a hand-basket.  Six bucks for a gallon of fuel, and look what happened.  I'm not saying there's any correlation between soaring gas prices and an impending viral apocalypse (fictional or otherwise).  I'm just saying.