One of our regular readers sent us an email this morning that I thought was a great opening for a short story.

“In the morning, I wake up, turn on CNBC to check the price of oil, utter a few curse words and head to the fridge for a Diet Pepsi.”

He added, after I sent him a note about his very descriptive prose, “And yes, it happened today!  I saw $126 and change and said ‘F**k, here we go again!!’ That oil ticker provides more of a jolt on some days than either Diet Pepsi or coffee!!”

As of this posting, crude is running at about $126.65, up 2.53 on the day, but off the $127.40 mark it hit earlier in the day.

The price of oil: our industry’s contradictory equivalent of Jolt. Twice the caffeine, providing twice the incentive to just go back to bed.