WATER BILL, WATER BILL, EVERYWHERE

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Like most people, I tend to at least give a passing glance to my bills as I pay them. I know, generally, what the standard bills will be, and expect them to fall in at least a ballpark range. Cable bill – always consistent. Electric bill – consistent from season to season. Phone bill – who knew my wife knew that many people around the country.

So you can imagine that I was a bit taken aback when I received a water bill that was five (five!) times my previous amount.

My first reaction was to call the water department and give them a little what-for and how! My second reaction was to realize that it was Saturday, and I was going to have to wait until Monday to speak to an actual person regarding this issue.

I went to my wife and asked her if she had used five times the amount of water that she did the previous month. She said she couldn’t say for sure, but was pretty confident she would remember had she created a medium-sized pond using the hose.

I went outside, looking to see if I could find a leak somewhere. I checked all around the yard, I guess hoping to find a little swamp or something, but came up empty. I checked every spigot and sprinkler head and valve. Nothing.

Eventually I made it to Monday. I called and spoke to a woman there who explained to me that, indeed, my water usage had increased dramatically. I explained to her that it was highly unlikely because I hadn’t done anything differently. "Well, first off, this cycle is for five weeks, not the standard four week cycle. That’s just the way it fell." I asked her if she thought a 25% increase in the cycle time should result in a 500% increase in the bill. "Well, it was a dry month, and people were running their sprinklers a lot."

I explained to her that the start of the billing cycle was the day after my daughter was born. A nice plush lawn was about the last thing on my mind. I had not run my sprinkler at all during the cycle. Besides, in months where I had run my sprinklers consistently, I had never had this kind of a bill. Nothing was adding up, and I wanted my water bill adjusted so that it was, oh, I don’t know, correct.

She told me that she would have to discuss it with the billing department. Apparently she was in the Talking About Billing Department, not the Doing Things About Billing Department. She said she would get back in touch with me in a few days.

During the next few days, I began to stew about things. I have found that it is quite healthy to get riled up and upset about things that are out of my control. I find it is helpful during sporting events as well. Then, while fretting and fretting a little more, I had a realization – only a few weeks before, I was home for lunch. I noticed that a truck was pulled up in my front yard, and a man was walking around my yard. I walked out and asked the man if I could help (help him finding his way out of my yard, I was thinking). He said that he was just here to replace the water meter, as it was faulty. Bingo! There it was! The Holy Grail. The missing Watergate Tapes. The body of Jimmy Hoffa. All of my questions were answered.

I immediately called the water lady back and told her of my unbelievable discovery. Surely, she would regard me from that day forward as the single greatest detective mind ever. "Yes, sir. I know. That’s why I’m checking with the billing department – to see if the faulty meter was the reason for the change in the bill."

Man, talk about taking the wind out of my sails. Now I know how Neil Armstrong would have felt had he got to the moon and found a family of four cruising around in a station wagon up there.

She told me that they were still looking into it (translation: stop calling us) and that she would get back in touch with me as soon as it was resolved.

A short time later, she called me back with the good news: indeed, it was the faulty meter, and my bill was entirely too high. They readjusted it, which I gladly paid.

When I got my water bill for the next month, it was back in the normal range. Apparently, my faulty meter has been replaced, and I can go on worrying about other important things. Like who all these long distance calls are to.