more fun from the billing departments of our essential services

a monologue

"hello, yes, hello.  is this mrs. pace.  it is?  okay, well...this is sally, from con edison and i have a little bit of weird news.  nothing to get too excited over, but it turns out, and i don't know how this happened, it could have just been an accident or it could be your super's fault, or maybe your fault, certainly not con ed's, but apparently your apartment has been on the meter of your neighbor's apartment for an indeterminate amount of time.  

yes, we don't know how long...no, no, it would be complicated to say without using computers, and the meters and the computers do really connect like that, you see...

yes, i know, it's strange that you could make such a mistake, but you did, and as it turns out, since your meters are switched, you've been paying one another's bills.  

i know, i know, it's unfortunate.

yes, he does live alone.  no, he doesn't leave his air conditioner on when he's not at home so that when he returns it's nice and cool, as a matter of fact he doesn't use an air conditioner at all though the whole summer.

and no, he has no computer, no mini freezer, television, or microwave.  no, he doesn't use much electricity at all...from talking with him, i believe he could be amish.  

yes, this does mean that your bill is probably much higher than his and will increase in the future, because, yes you do use 15-20 times as much electricity as the amish neighbor next door.

so what we're gonna do here is send you a letter telling you this all again with no explanation of how, why, or when it happened, then we'll credit your neighbor for the amount of his overpayment, which we can only estimate, so to screw him, we're just gonna say it's been going on for 6 months, and then yes, that's correct, we'll bill you for the difference, and to screw you, we're going to look back though our records and charge you for the difference as we see it over the last 25 years.  oh, you've only lived in the apartment for 9 years?  i'm so sorry, but that really doesn't matter.

so thanks a bunch and thank for choosing having no choice but to use con ed."

end scene.