Why Do Inflation Rates Sometimes Surprise Us?

Imagine you're buying candy every week. One day, the candy costs a little more, that's inflation! Sometimes it happens so fast we don't notice until it's already here. Inflation rates are like a report card telling us how much prices have gone up over time. But sometimes the report card doesn’t match what we expect because of tricky things like when we count the price changes or if there are big changes in only one part of the economy.