almost got litigious

i had sworn it just days before…

…while borderline loaded i planned the lawsuit against my city – for eight months now they had drug out this myth that the bullshit utility bill i’d received back in january, the only one in the forty-six years i’ve lived here (forty-seven in another month) that had EVER started with a FIVE, was legit.

since then i’d even gotten some that started with a six, but that was almost by design. a quick look back…

…last october a guy from the city came by and said he needed to change the water meter as our signal was weak (they read them electronically and over time, like any self-powered device, the internal batteries just die). when the november bill came i thought it was a bit high, but we had also had record-setting temps in november, and anyone in texas with central a/c knows that the warm months are when your bills spike, so i just chalked it up to that.

but then came that december bill…the one that was over $500.00. at that point temps had cooled and it should have been under $200. i cried bullshit. i looked back at my last five years worth of utilities and january was NEVER over $200, let alone over $500. i march in and tell them i’ll pay no more than $225, and i wanna see their boss. next thing i know i’m in a glass cubicle in the middle of city hall meeting with the utility manager. i’ll spare you the bulk of the details, but one of the bits that came out was that she would take care of it, but it would be a couple of weeks due to her heading out for gall bladder surgery the following week. i wish her the best with all that, and figure i’d get a call in the next week or two.

when the january bill came out it had an extra $282 “leftover” on it, but even with that was under $450. i just went in in january and paid the current due, in exact change, and told them i wasn’t paying the $282. i did the same in february. in march, when it had been two MONTHS not WEEKS since that meeting, i got a disconnect notice. when i called to “discuss” this (i’d already spoke to an attorney friend) i got the same lady on the line, who apologized for the notice, said to ignore it, and explained that she had some complications from the surgery and was getting back in the office that week!

(an ex who had the same procedure when we were together just took a friday plus her weekend and was back in her government office by monday)

and so we repeated in april…and may…and june…and july…and then the august bill came out. it’s typically one of the highest of the year, and was sitting at $386, PLUS the $282 ($668 total) which lead to the slightly drunken declaration that in september i was gonna toss a coin and one of two things would happen…

1. i would cut them a check for the $282, but only in front of news cameras from “Seven On Your Side”, a locally based consumer watchdog program, where the city of lockhart folk would get to explain to the world why they were ripping off a forty-six year resident who helps their crews move branches and brings people patching the street in front of the house bottles of water when its hot.

or…

2. i would call back the aforementioned solicitor, add one zero for each fiscal quarter they had drug out this bogus bill amount, and sue the city for $282,000.00 for negligence (no explanation needed there), “pain and mental suffering” due to the sleep loss and such from worrying about our utilities being shut off in the hot summer, and the harassment of multiple shut-off notices.

but instead, i got a call last week saying they had completed their audit of the account, and not only had i been right all along, but i had actually overpaid on both the november AND december bills, so not only was the past due balance gone, but the current bill of $386 was now just $300, so all was now right with that part of my world again. nice to see shit gettin’ fixed.