Want to know why we had so many hurricanes this year? It was because I had free electricity all summer, that's why. When we kept having all those power outages, I couldn't even say, "Well at least my Electric bill will be lower!" It was already lower than it could get ... even if I'd been away on vacation, which I wasn't.

Last Memorial Day, I was sitting here at my computer doing some important thing, when all of a sudden a loud pop pop pop sound ripped along the wall right in front of me. I yelled, "What the heck was that?", and from the other room came back, "I don't know but it was right outside this window.". I dashed out to investigate. Smoke was pouring from the electric meter, so it was kinda obvious it had a problem. I ran back inside and turned off everything that was turned on (mostly my computer, since it was still daylight), and called the electric company. Back outside, the smoke gradually diminished until finally it stopped altogether. A quick check verified that the power had not been effected by whatever this disaster was.

Well, about half an hour later, a bewildered and not very happy BG&E guy arrived and skittishly pulled the cover off the meter box, while verifying, "It was smoking, huh?" which looked pretty obvious to me ... it was burned black inside. It was, remember, a holiday, so this on-call technician was not carrying around a bunch of spare parts (like a new meter). His temporary solution for my cooked meter was to sidestep it and run the power straight into the house. He removed the meter and put it on the ground, put the box cover back on, and departed stating that he would put in a work order to have the thing repaired.

Yeah, right!

June's bill arrived and was a delightful $12.95 for the days from the last meter reading on May 27th to the end of June. Then followed another bill with no charge for July. This is the way to go, I thought happily. I still paid my budget payment as required, but figured I was well on my way to a happy winter season of prepaid heat. Yup, the credits kept adding up as the zero due bills kept coming in.

Sometime in August another BG&E repairman put in an appearance and told me he was here to fix the meter. He shortly concluded that he couldn't fix it either ... I needed a bigger box for the amps the house was wired for, or some such thing. He happily informed me he would put in a repair order, and off he went.

The free electricity continued to pour in until my bubble suddenly burst in mid-October. I opened the bill and it said "Do not pay anything on this bill". It listed the amount of money they were returning to me, and at the bottom it said "Final Bill". "huh?", says I right out loud to myself.

Two days later, I finally managed to get someone at BG&E on the phone (only had to wait 10 minutes, too). The following ensued:

"Hi, I just got a bill that says it is my final bill"

Her: "What is your street address, phone number, and last name?"

Me: "You see on Memorial Day, my meter burned up and two people have since come out to fix it, but didn't. It is still lounging on the ground under the box"

Her: "You don't have a meter on your house?"

Me: "Right! I have no meter...but it says on this bill that the meter was read on Oct 12th and they charged me for 989 units, how can that be when there is no meter?"

Her: "... aaah, Mrs. Leonard, I have to go look up this record...this may take a while, is that all right?"

Me: "Sure" (I managed to get in a whole solitaire game here ... and won!)

Her: "Mrs. Leonard you have no meter on your house!" (duh!) "Your account has been closed and I can't open a new one for you until you have a meter. I am going to set up an appointment for someone to come and put one in for you, OK?"

Me: "OK, but I do have one teeny question. If I have no account, why do I have power?"

Her: "I can't answer that, but I have the service man right here on the phone, you can talk to him now."

Him: "Mrs. Leonard, I see two service men were out and didn't get your meter installed. You need a bigger box because.... Are you going to be home today?"

Me: "Yup"

Him: "OK if we come out this afternoon before 1:00?" (AND it took them 4 1/2 months to not get here before!) "We'll look it over and see what we can do"

Me: "Fine!" (they arrived half an hour later ... unbelievable!)

These two guys turned off my power, and commenced to rip, pound, then drill ... into the brick ... at which point I went outside and suggested that knocking the house down wouldn't solve the problem. Their answer, "We thought that might get your attention".

Well, I'm not one to just stand around, so I said, "Why does that look the same size as the old one?"

"It's the same size as that one over there and on all the other houses around here." was the reply.

"OK", says I, "but why isn't it a bigger one like I've been waiting a month and a half for?"

"You don't need one", came right back.

"Silly me....", thinks I.

Well, my free power trip was over, power was restored and was once again flowing through the meter. "Thanks a lot, guys!", I quipped as they left.

What a deal ... no meter and I still had power, and with no electric account I still had power. (Can't you just see where my mind was going with this!)

Well, I guess BG&E thought I just drove off into the sunset and forgot to say good-bye....

So ... they quietly bade me farewell, and forgot to turn off the lights.

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Copyright© BZ Leonard 2000 All rights reserved
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