I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

The Importance of Good Penmanship

So I’ve been freaking out quietly about my electric bill for the past week or so.  I think I called today the day of impending doom a few times to my spouse.  Today is the day the electric bill arrives in my email inbox.

And, arrive it did.  I opened the email with much trepidation, which only has the total due and due date, and was greeted with a total due of $126.45.

What?  Huh?  As my (much) younger brother says… Wha?

So I clicked through to get to my account with the copy of the actual bill.  And it says we used 1783 kWh last month.  As I posted a week ago, I had already calculated our usage as of last week hovering at 2000 kWh so umm… hmm.  I looked at the actual readings and the new reading was in line with what I saw yesterday on our meter (when they read it) but the beginning value was 20932.  Which was nowhere near what I had written on my tracking sheet from last month’s bill’s end value.  So I look at my (very low tech pencil written) tracking sheet and there is says… 20432.

But if you squint at the 4 it looks like it probably could have meant to be a 9.

I pulled up the computer copy of last month’s bill and indeed, the end value is 20932.

The moral of this story is, penmanship counts.  And that I should have a computerized tracking sheet.  Not that my typing skills rival my penmanship but my proofreading skills are pretty decent.  And I wrote down 22715 (this month’s ending value) very very carefully.  And now it is immortalized in type as well so maybe I’ll have a little less freaking out going on over here in early October.  If the heat ever breaks, that is.  High of 93 yesterday!  heh.

~J

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