Here's something wild about November's numbers - consumer prices actually slipped 0.1% from October. But dig deeper and you'll see the real story got buried.

What really happened? Bad weather wreaked havoc on food supplies, pushing those prices higher. Then gold went on a tear, dragging the entire "miscellaneous goods and services" bucket up over 14%. Without those two factors inflating the headline number, the underlying deflation would've looked much worse.

So yeah, the surface says mild deflation. The reality? It's messier than that, with specific sectors masking broader price weakness.