. . . have had it

It's been such a crappy week, honestly. My normal equanimity in the face of staggering odds (okay, a bit of hyperbole there) was not in evidence. Let me share with you the occurrence that just put me over the edge. A while back, while I was still married, I noticed that my electric bill was only about $8, but did I question it? Not at first. Then every month for about a year it continued to be $8. A real moral dilemma here. . . do I report the broken meter or do I just continue paying the minimum charge? Everyone I asked just looked at me like I was crazy. . . of course don't report it, are you nuts? Except for Ann, my little sister, who warned me that karma could bite me in the ass if I wasn't careful. So I faithfully sent in my $8 every month, rationalizing that the meter guy read the meter every month and if he couldn't see that it hadn't moved one tiny bit in all that time, it was actually KCPL's problem, not mine.






Then one day I get a bill from KCPL for $2,000. And a listing of my payments that had been reversed, so it looked like I had not paid for months. By that time I didn't have $2,000 or even $2, so I couldn't have paid it, and besides, as far as I was concerned, the electric company had just arbitrarily picked a number and said I owed it, even though it was their mistake. By this time, the husband had split and KCPL had his name on the account, so I even quit getting the normal monthly bills, since they were going to his forwarding address. . . well, one of them, anyway. And of course he wasn't going to pay them or even tell me about them. Probably didn't even open them. So I went on-line and registered with KCPL as my husband just so I could access the current monthly charges, which I paid faithfully, on time. But I didn't put a dent in the $2,000 broken meter charges.






Wednesday night when I come home from work, my garage door opener didn't work. I went in through the front door and found a note from KCPL: "We stopped by to collect $2,000 but you weren't home so we shut off your power." Just f-ing superb. I called to explained the situation in tones just short of hysteria, and made arrangements to pay the $2,000. But KCPL would not turn on the power again that night. They claimed to have "one business day" to get the power back on. I didn't think I could manage to spend the night and get ready for work the next day without power, so I packed up my stuff and spent the night at my son's house. The power came back on about 4:15 p.m., as far as I can tell.






Keep in mind that this was just the culmination of all the rotten things that have happened recently. Sometimes I wonder how I manage to get up every morning. Now, besides everything else, I'm a deadbeat who gets her power turned off the minute the weather warms up and the power company decides they need their $2,000, which they "estimate" is what I owe them. Okay, I've vented, I feel better. I even have today off work, but it is raining so I can't work in the garden and the mechanic can't get my taillight fixed today for some reason. So I plan to stick around the house and make some art. That, too, will make me feel better. And Ann was right, karma just took a bit bite out of my butt.






These photos of bridges are actually for a painting I have in my mind. I can't figure out exactly how I'm going to execute it, though, and it's driving me nuts. I just don't have the skill or expertise or knowledge to know what to do to come up with what I see in my mind's eye. This particular bridge, or actually a viaduct, is in a small nondescript park right on the Kansas River in Kansas City, Kansas.