| Mike Pirtle: Wow, can they see missus’ lights from outer space? |
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By: MIKE PIRTLE, Post Publisher
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Posted: Sunday, January 11, 2009 8:01 am
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Seen that commercial with Ozzie Osborne as some kind of demonic-looking video game character who cries out, “SHARON.”
That’s how I looked last week and, since Ozzie and I have wives with the same name, that’s what my horrible, scary visage cried out.
Now, I don’t know about Ozzie, but the missus didn’t bother to answer me.
Just as well.
My anguished outcry came after opening our electric bill.
I wouldn’t have been shocked any less if I had grabbed a 220-outlet with my bare hands. I did that once and still remember exactly how it felt.
It felt like what I felt when I saw the electric bill.
How can two people use that much electricity?
We sure as heck don’t cook much. We do shower pretty frequently but get in and out fairly quickly.
We mainly use those twisty bulbs that allegedly consume much less electricity.
Now, we do have our excesses.
Too often multiple televisions are churning electricity in our house, especially if a football game is on and I’m moving around in the home. OK, if I’m watching TV, the odds are good I will have the den TV on where I’m watching it, the kitchen TV on because I went to get something to eat and/or drink, and probably the bedroom little TV on because earlier I got something to drink.
But, I always do that so the electric bill shouldn’t suddenly shoot up by a third.
But, it did.
Geez.
Since the missus puts up Christmas decorations, I began to wonder if maybe she was decorating outside as inside where in some rooms I’m afraid to turn around for fear of knocking over a Waterford Christmas ball, collectible Santa Claus or family heirloom (means we bought it when the kids were living in our house).
Maybe, I queried myself, the missus has a bunch of Christmas lights on the front lawn that she only turns on while I’m away or after I head for the den, never to be seen the rest of the night except for those kitchen and bathroom visits.
That line of thought and the size of the electric bill made me then wonder if we hadn’t won some kind of prize for outside Christmas decorations, something like the Cosmos Holiday Brites.
If that wasn’t the case, I wondered it the missus maybe left all the front doors and windows open to keep her holiday delights nice and warm or something.
Then, I remembered we have gas heat.
Racking my cranium for an explanation for this unpleasant surprise, I considered whether this newfangled digital television signals we’ve been being warned about for months now might suck a whole lot more sparks out of our house wires.
Or, maybe that high definition television programming was also high electrical consuming.
Maybe because it was so much colder this fall and early winter, light bulbs and TV thingies that used to be tubes consumed more electricity to get bright enough to do their jobs.
I’m always suspicious of the missus’ cat. He always likes to come inside in the morning as I’m leaving. I figure he generally just lies around and naps all day as that is what I usually see him doing.
I began to suspect he spent his time wondering around the house with the lights all on, the TVs blaring, the refrigerator door open, the clothes dryer tumbling empty and the dishwasher running half full.
He doesn’t care for me much, and the feeling is mutual.
Then, I remembered.
TVA had announced back last summer, timed it seems so we would forget, a rate increase. Something ridiculous like 20 percent.
Even though energy prices overall have declined since then, TVA went ahead and hammered us anyway.
Unfortunately, since the public agency has now had two of its giant coal ash ponds break and cause as yet undetermined property and ecological damage, I guess us ratepayers might as well go ahead and pay the outrageously inflated bills.
And, remember the good old days when the late departed “Carvin’” Marvin Runyon ran TVA and made the agency cut back bureaucracy and hold rates intact for something like 10 or 12 years.
Guess it’s a lot easier just to jack up rates and leave big piles of ash lying around until something happens.
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