Maybe they're all ExxonMobil stockholders, spending their share of those record profits.
Or, perhaps like all good addicts, we've reached
step 1: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable."
Or, perhaps the "boiling the frog" myth holds: prices jumped after Katrina. Now, they've been rising slowly, so we're getting used to the price. (By the way, I heard yesterday that a frog will not actually jump out of a pot of boiling water, so the old wive's tale is false.) I remember my parents freaking out when gas jumped to $1 a gallon. But the slow creep to $2 went unnoticed.