America awoke to the thrilling news that prices are behaving like a middle child during a road trip: not screaming, not sleeping, just staring out the window judging your snacks. PCE inflation, the Fed’s favorite thermos of lukewarm coffee, stayed stable in July, and Wall Street nodded like it had predicted that on purpose.

For the uninitiated, PCE is the polite cousin of CPI, the index that remembers to bring casserole and subtract your coupon. I read the footnotes, the footnotes’ footnotes, and a shy endnote hiding behind a disclaimer, and the math checks out: the price level is doing interpretive dance, but quietly.

This leaves the Federal Reserve on track to lower interest rates, which in central bank terms is the equivalent of whispering ‘there, there’ to a hyperactive bond market. The famous dot plot is now less constellation and more connect-the-dots giraffe saying ‘maybe later.’

Mortgage lenders are already practicing smiles in the mirror that say ‘we’re your friend’ while their calculators plot character arcs. Homebuyers, sensing a deal, are Googling whether the American Dream comes in 30-year or just a trial subscription with ads.

At the press conference, Jay Powell appeared in his signature expression—soothing owl who’s seen too much—explaining that stability is not stagnation, it’s ‘momentum that doesn’t want attention.’ He promised to be ‘data dependent,’ which is central banker for ‘don’t touch anything until the spreadsheet flinches.’

Markets responded by doing what they do best: mishearing everything at a volume of 11. Algorithms bought semiconductors, airline peanuts, and a company rumored to be the Boots-with-the-Fur of macro, because it contained the letters P, C, and E in that order.

Personally, I celebrated by indexing my pantry to core services inflation and discovering I own fifteen kinds of pasta and one emotion. I also dusted off my contingency plan, which is just a seven-gallon emergency cold brew kit and a VHS tape labeled ‘Quantitative Easing: The Musical.’

If you want a metaphor, inflation is not sprinting, it’s taking a long, sensible walk with an audiobook about bonds narrated by a beige couch. This is the ‘dead parrot sketch’ of macroeconomics: it’s not dead, it’s resting after a long period of being unbearably alive.

Corporate America, freed from the tyranny of surprise spikes, will now return to its true passion: announcing ‘one-time charges’ that recur with the regularity of my dental guilt. As is tradition, I will allow myself one merciful joke about it, and then write three sober paragraphs on inventory turns to atone.

Consumers may soon meet a world where credit card bills exhale instead of hiss. Grocers will claim prices are ‘normalizing,’ which is a beautiful word meaning the cereal box still shrank but comes with a QR code for a inflation survival pantry pack.

Politicians rushed to take credit, posing with charts like proud parents of a flat line. One proposed the Stable Prices Appreciation Act, which would mint a commemorative quarter that refuses to increase in value no matter how loudly you shake it.

Next month might confirm the vibe, or remind us that economic gravity is elastic and loves a prank. Until then, the policy path is clear, the spreadsheets are humming, and the dead parrot continues to politely not move. If rates do fall, I’ll celebrate responsibly—by making a single, nonrecurring toast that, in keeping with tradition, repeats every quarter.