It's a Gas

I have a new jingle that I've been singing, to the tune of the "Oscar Mayer weiner" song, and I'd like to offer it to Equitable Gas for use in their advertising:

I wish I was a regulated monopoly,
Equitable Gas is who I'd like to be,
'Cause if I was a regulated monopoly,
I'd screw the public with impunity!

Equitable Gas has not read my meter in more than a year. (I have a feeling many of the meter readers have been laid off or retired --- witness the closed Equitable district office and garage up in North Versailles near Crestas Terrace.)

Instead, they keep "estimating" my bills, and they apparently think that I spend all year long with the windows open and the furnace cranked up to 99 degrees.

Their estimates are insane for a single guy in a one-bedroom house --- especially for a guy who set the indoor temperature at a balmy 64 degrees last winter expressly for the purpose of keeping his gas bills low.

A few months ago, I read my own meter and went to Equitable's website to enter the numbers. Bzzzzt! Rejected: The meter reading I entered was lower than Equitable's estimate, so it wasn't acceptable.

I called the gas company and gave the reading to them. "Oh, my," the lady said. "We're going to have to adjust your bill."

"Higher?" I said.

"Lower," she said. "Much lower. Disregard your current bill. I'm going to issue a new bill with a new due date, and we're also going to lower your budget payment."

That sounds pretty good, right?

Two weeks later I received a termination notice from Equitable Gas for failing to pay my gas bill. Remember when Donald Duck used to go crazy, and his eyes would turn red, and steam would shoot from his ears?

I looked something like that, only with considerably more quacking and jumping up and down.

I called Equitable Gas again. It turns out that the people who take the meter readings and the people who send the bills work in separate departments. The meter people asked for a new bill to be issued, but the billing people never cancelled the old statement.

What did I need to do to keep the gas from being shut off? Why, pay both bills! For $351. Which I did. I resisted the temptation to write the check in my own blood.

They promise me that I haven't overpaid, and of course, I believe them. After all, if you can't trust a utility company, who can you trust?

A few days later, Equitable Gas called me. Since they hadn't read my meter in more than a year, they want to convert me over to an electronic meter that they can read automatically.

That's fine with me. I'd no longer be getting these gas bill estimates that are apparently calculated based on the cost to heat a barn in Edmonton, Alberta, in January.

But a few days later, I had a message on my answering machine: Equitable says my meter can't be converted. Would I call them immediately?

I did. I was told there's a "broken screw" on my meter.

I have no idea what this means, but it's apparently serious, because they can't connect the electronic gizmo without fixing the screw.

So I asked the lady a question that, I admit, is kind of stupid.

"Why don't you just fix the screw?" I said.

Well, because, she explained, the people who attach the electronic gizmos --- all together now --- work in a different department from the people who fix broken screws.

She agreed to submit a request to the people who fix broken screws to come out and fix my broken screw, but she could offer no timetable as to when the mighty machinery of Equitable Gas might be able to handle such a difficult request.

That was several weeks ago. The meter is still broken, and I just got another estimated bill.

This morning, I checked the Equitable Gas website. "With the implementation of automated meter reading," it says, "customer meter readings are no longer being accepted" via the Internet.

Which is par for the course, since you can't pay your Equitable Gas bill online, either. If you don't want to pay by mail, Equitable offers "local neighborhood payment centers," which means you can stand in line to pay your gas bill at Dairy Mart behind the urine-soaked winos trying to buy lottery tickets with food stamps.

So, let's review:

• Equitable Gas won't or can't read my meter, and
• Equitable Gas wants to make it more difficult to read my own meter, and
• Equitable Gas won't or can't fix my damned meter so that it can be read automatically, and
• Equitable Gas will thus continue "estimating" my bill, using the average annual heating requirements of Century III Mall as its basis for comparison

Meanwhile: Equitable's parent company (which is buying one of its few competitors in this area, the old People's Natural Gas Co.) made 36 cents a share in the second quarter of this year, according to an earnings report released last week. Operating income from its utilities business more than doubled, while expenses decreased.

It seems to me that Equitable is screwing something, but it ain't my broken meter.