Every day the prices go up and up! Right?

Wrong! Yesterday I filled my gas tank at my local friendly self-service garage. Usually, as of late, I have been using a credit card. Delaying payment for 25 days is one major benefit of those plastic cards with the 16 numbers on one side and the black stripe on the other.

Yesterday I decided to pay for my petroleum purchase with cash. You remember cash. It's greenish and it has a presidential or American historical figure on one side and Latin phrases and funny pictures on the other.

For the last six months my gasoline fill-ups have hovered around the $20 mark. I handed the gentleman in the cage a bill with the picture of Andrew Jackson (seventh president of the United States) on it.

Surprise! He handed me back $3.47. It was an unexpected bonus! My cost of living had been reduced 17.35 per cent. The cost of something had actually gone down.

What should I do with this wonderful gift? To whom do I owe a thank you, for this largesse? Should I send a letter to those beturbaned gentlemen in flowing robes at OPEC? Who was my benefactor? I was $3.47 richer. It was grand.

I have heard on the news that we owe it all to our Russian friends. They refused to cut oil production. I saw President Bush and Premier Putin riding around the president's ranch in Crawford, TX and they looked like old buddies. I hope their friendship blossoms and grows.

Maybe someday in the near future we can again be the recipients of gas prices under $1 a gallon. Maybe it would start a trend. Milk at 25 cents a quart? Hot dogs at 50 cents? Beer and soda at old-time prices?

I truly am not completely comfortable with this phenomenon of falling prices. For all of my 60-plus years, prices always went up and up. I hope I can get used to it.