Gas prices

That's petrol, as was.
Of course, by world standards, they are ridiculously cheap -- I'm not going to argue that point. But the rate of getting less-ridiculously-cheap is actually rather high: we have seen a five-fold increase in gas prices here over the last 10 or 11 years: shortly after LOML and I moved here we paid 68.9 cents for a (US) gallon of gas: as of this evening I saw a gas station with a price of $3.459 per gallon.
That corresponds to a sustained average rate of about 16% per year --- although price has gone in fits and starts rather than consistently.

Yours, running on empty,
N.