Was the price upped?

Not being a comparison shopper, I have no idea what the usual price is for bottled water here in town. I follow only the lime index (the number of limes that a dollar will buy) and the price of Reed candles (sold in mail-order catalogues very expensively as "emergency candles") and sold here, along with ven a mi and suerte candles, as inexpensive items for general household use. The price of limes varies according to the weather; the price of 7-day candles goes up around el dia de los muertos (or Hallowe'en) and also again beginning a week before Guadalupe day in December, not returning to normal under-a-dollar prices until after the new year starts. At any rate, H-E-B had a giant end-cap display of Ozarka bottled water, and general end-cap retailing practice is not to put sale items in that location, just items to catch the shopper's eye. We still enjoy off-flavored and odiferous water. Now the water and wastewater utility, having destroyed our City-side water cut-off valve altogether, has replaced it with a new one and threatens to replace the meter. Thanks to our friendly municipal utility, we have a mineral-blocked tap, an unattached garden hose, a charge for water that the utility workers used and that we didn't, a dug-up yard, and a new whine and rattle in the pipes. And then yesterday, just as the fabulous Breton chocolate pound cake was contemplated, there was a power outage that lasted over an hour and a half. I don't like bottled water. I'm certainly not looking forward to the next utility bill. At least there was good chocolate cake, even though the water in the recipe was from a bottle, because the tapwater wasn't fit for use.