Wow. WOW WOW WOW what a difference a year makes.

One year ago (if you want to get specific, 14 months ago -- last March), there were some locations in Maine (like Town Line Deli in Waterboro) that had regular gas for just $1.99/gallon. That's right, 14 months ago, gas was UNDER TWO DOLLARS, according to NEWS CENTER Maine.

Fast forward to May 2021, though, and suddenly we're hemorrhaging money to buy gasoline. This week, according to NEWS CENTER Maine, gas prices rose 6.8 cents. That's just in the last week! And that increase put a lot of places offering gas at over $3.00/gallon for the first time in SEVEN YEARS.

While the first thought for most people would be the increase has to do with the ransomware attack on the colonial pipeline, which has people believing that the supply of gas is donezo, which has increased the demand of gas and caused hoarding situations and therefore jacked up the prices, NEWS CENTER Maine says that AAA Maine and AAA Northern New England are debunking that.

According to AAA Maine and AAA Northern New England, there are simply just more cars out on the road, which is causing the increase in gas prices.

And maybe that's entirely possible -- a year ago, most of us were equal parts in quarantine and not going anywhere, and also slightly petrified of doing anything so we didn't expose ourselves or our families to COVID. But the fact remains that there is a bit of a gas panic right now because of that ransomware attack.

It's a bit like The Great Toilet Paper Hoarding of 2020, when we were all afraid we'd run out of T.P. and be unable to go out and purchase more because of quarantine. We're now in the middle of the Great Gas Hoarding of 2021. Just scroll down your social media feed, and you're guaranteed to find at least one image of someone filling the back of their SUV with cans and cans of gas. Or even filling a massive tote with gasoline, like this woman.

You know it's a wild time when a reminder like this needs to be sent out:

Let's stay safe, Maine. And also hope that sometime, somehow, gas prices start getting closer to $2.00/gallon quicker than they get closer to $4.00/gallon. Either that, or we can kick it back to when our grandparents were kids and would "walk 15 miles uphill both ways in the cold, blizzardy snow."

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