Vladimir Putin was surprised when he opened his February natural gas bill and saw it was $13,000. Ha, ha… no, wait. I’m sorry. It was an Asian restauranteur in California with the sky-high LNG bill.

On Feb. 9 the Liang family behind the long-running barbecue specialist opened their gas bill and saw a shocking figure: $13,656.25. The therm rate had jumped from a cost of $1.05 per unit in December to a whopping $3.45 in January, sending the owners of the restaurant — which relies on gas stoves for its wok-fired menu and oven-roasted barbecued meats — into a panic.

Price gouging! How could this happen? It’s almost like all the otherwise cheap US LNG is being shipped to Europe because someone blew up a pipeline or something. Odd, right?

The Liang family and other domestic targets, like Germany, France, and Turkey before them, now know what Henry Kissinger meant about it being dangerous to be friends with the USSA. Wok ‘n roll?