A letter came the either day from the gas company. It was not the friendliest of letters. It said that we were preventing its employees from accessing the meter and that we should take immediately action to remedy the situation. It reminded us that the gas company owned the meter and had the right, if we did not comply, to cut off our service. It again urged us to take immediate action, lest they be forced to take action.

Concerned, I called the gas company. I got the recorded voice of a very pleasant woman who gave me eight options. You know the drill–punch one for that, two for that, etc. But none of the eight pertained to my particular situation so I had to punch the O and listen to a hundred verses of some peppy Muzak tune until a real live woman said, “How may I help you today?”

I gave her my name, address, phone number and account number and after she called up our account her voice became a tad bit less pleasant. She obviously new the problem but asked me to explain it anyway.

I told her that I didn’t quite understand the situation, inasmuch as just a few weeks earlier I’d let their service man in, showed him where our meter was in the basement and let him replace some part on our meter.

“Yes, I do see that a part was replaced,” she said. “But your meter is on the outside of your house and not in the basement. And the reason you got the letter is that you need to trim your shrubs so the meter reader can see the dials.”

“That’s incorrect,” I said. “Our meter is in the basement. Just before calling you I checked to make sure. I also walked around the house and looked behind all of the shrubs to make sure there wasn’t a second meter.”

“It says here that your meter is on the outside,” she said. “Trim your shrubs.”

“No, it’s in the basement,” I insisted. “Right there by the washer and dryer.”

“According to what I’m seeing here, it’s on the outside,” she insisted back, “on the right side of the house.” She suggested that I go stand in my front yard, determine which side of my house is the right side, go there, and then look behind the overgrown shrubs. There, she said, I’ll find my meter.

“My shrubs are really not that overgrown,” I said. “And, like I said, I checked and there’s no meter there.”

“We show there is,” she said.

At this point a lesser man might have let go with a few choice words and demanded to talk to her superior. But being a writer—a master of irony and satire if you will–I pointed out, that, “I live here, your computer doesn’t.”

She laughed and admitted that “perhaps” we have a new meter reader who doesn’t know that our meter is in the basement, and when he couldn’t see behind our overgrown shrubs, he assumed the meter was there and had the nasty letter sent out.

“My shrugs are not overgrown,” I screeched. “At least when I began this call they weren’t!”

“We show they are,” she said.

“Have a nice day,” I said.

Editor’s note: Mr. Corwin filed this posting before heading out West with his little friends. If you are reading this on Monday, he is somewhere in Arizona, marveling at the cacti. He is going to make an attempt to post next week’s blog from wild and woolly Petrolia, California. So, if this space is empty next week, you’ll know that attempt didn’t work. Or that he’s still in AZ marveling at the cacti. Or wasting away in Indiana waiting for the new transmission to arrive.