$2.899

What is it with these numbers?

First of all, I’m astounded that Bing gave me a recognizable image of QuikTrip and its pumps. It got the trademark wrong (just a Q rather than a QT), and the pumps have displays above the buttons with the prices. But still, recognizable.

For the last week, probably a little less than that, all the gas prices in the Kansas City area have been $2.899. I have been up to Liberty, down to Grandview, over to Zona Rosa, and many of the places in between. I have not been downtown, or on the Kansas side, so I don’t know about them, but all the QTs I’ve seen, and even the Flying J and Shell, etc. have been at $2.89.

This is not normal. Usually all the prices are within a few cents, and the places that are closest to each other, of course, are more likely to have prices identical.

Now, I’m not claiming some government or otherwise conspiracy. I don’t think that they have that sort of power, for one thing. Though they’d like to have. But there does seem to be something else in the mix that is freezing the prices. Probably next week, or even the weekend, things will bounce out of whatever holding pattern they are in and redistribute to their normal patterns.

And I know that Kansas City, and most of Missouri, tends to have gas prices that are lower than the national average.