Gas

It appears that the long suffering wife has done a very good job of entertaining you in my absence. I will come to the details of the weekend soon, I am sure, but I felt today I should concentrate on the all-important topic of gas.

Our Gas Company wants to change our gas meter. It is due for renewel. Whether this is just an age vs safety thing, or they want to meter us in a new way I don’t know. Our current meter seems to do exactly what its meant to. It meters our gas and lets the company provide us with huge bills. This seems to work well. However, if the Gas company wish to change it then that’s fine by us. Its in the porch. They can do so whenever they wish...you would think. They sent us out a letter asking us to arrange a time they could change the meter. "Any time at all" we said. They require us to be in when they do so. They don't need us in so that they can access it, but they would just like us around. They can't say what time of day they will be there, so they want us to be in all day. In anticipation of this great gas meter change.

It should not come as a shock that we have not felt the need to take a day off work to accommodate them. They don’t “do” evenings or weekends. So, now, every few weeks they send us a letter telling us when they will arrive. We ignore it. They arrive, leave a letter saying "we came to change your meter, but as you were not in, we didn’t. Please rebook."

These letters have begun to give a sense of rhythm to our lives. It feels nice to recive non-bill-related post. Sure, they say the same thing every two weeks. Yes, ultimately, the relationship is stuck in a rut. Yet despite all this, I feel it’s a relationship that I know where I am with. I would actually feel very sad if they did give in and come by one evening. It would change the relationship. I think we have a good thing going now. I am actually becoming attached to the gas meter. I didn’t care about it before. But now I am starting to get attached, starting to think, "well, I like this meter, it's never done me any harm...I don’t think it should be just discarded; cast aside on the scrapheap of used meters." No, this gas meter has become part of the family. I should defend it's right to service; I should keep it. Refuse to let the barbarians take it away.

Then I remember it’s a gas meter, and remind myself I don’t care.

Your as ever,

The broken man