I ran some errands earlier tonight, and when I got back home I rode up in the elevator with a neighbor who’d just returned from grocery shopping. This woman has lived in my building for years, and she’s always struck me as a bit crazy. She seems like she has a kind of reverse autism, in that her poor social skills manifest themselves in approaching anyone she sees in the building and talking nonstop about whatever happens to be on her mind.

What was on my neighbor’s mind tonight was the high price of whoopie pies.

“The whoopie pies at the Giant [a local supermarket] have been Obamaized,” she said as the elevator doors closed.

She was bringing in her groceries in a large wheeled suitcase. The whoopie pies didn’t quite fit inside and were sticking out the top. She’d bought half a dozen of them at the store’s bakery. The cake part was red velvet instead of the traditional chocolate. They looked pretty tasty.

“Obamaized?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied. “They used to be $5.99, but now they’re $6.99.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re blaming President Obama for raising the price of whoopie pies at Giant?”

“Yeah, they’re so expensive now.”

With that we reached her floor, and she wheeled her suitcase of groceries out of the elevator.