Life in America has become very expensive. With the ever-rising costs for basic needs like gas and food, we all continue to ask, "Why are prices so high now?" One answer I'm given from a top economist is the so-called "pandemic effect:" During the early days of Covid 19, Americans went on spending and hoarding sprees at the very time when factories and ports had to close down, causing stores and warehouses to go out-of-stock on many consumer goods. Thatsurge in demand, coupled with limited supply,contributed to the higher prices we see today. I took my huge family out yesterday for a drive in the country, perhaps just to escape for a day all the distressing news and soaring prices of the retail world. We stopped to walk around on a forest path, and photographed some strange birds there, happy to find an activity that didn't cost an arm and a leg. On the way home, however, we needed to stop at a little country gas station and market, to get gouged once again for fuel, snacks, and drinks. As I was inserting my credit card to cover the damage for this little joy ride in the country, I asked the cashier if they had air for tires outside, as I'd noticed my left rear tire looked a bit low. He told me they did have an air compressor line, around the side, and that it was coin operated. "You need to put in four quarters to turn it on," he explained. "Do you need quarters?" Not having a real choice, I handed over a dollar bill to get my four precious quarters--for air. "I understand why you need to charge so much for the gas and food," I added, "but why must you also charge me for air?" The cashier smiled and said, "Inflation."

Convert "Anecdote Two" (the complete text is available on the previous page in this module) into a joke by doing three things to the text: 1. Reduce the text length by eliminating all the parts that are irrelevant to the main joke; 2. Change the tense to present tense; 3. Change the narrator's point of view to 3rd person.