Got Gas?

Moving.  Its the gift that keeps on giving.  Months after you think you’ve finished, it rears its ugly head and reminds you that you are but a pawn in this moving game.

This morning I woke up early to go to church.  I hadn’t bathed since Friday (I’m gross, lets move past it…), and while I know that the Lord will take me in any state of cleanliness He can get me, I felt that my pew-mates may not feel the same.  So, I’m standing in the bathroom waiting for the hot water to kick in and I’m waiting, and I’m waiting, and I’m waiting.  No hot water.

And then I remember that I have been hearing a motor running in our basement for a day or two.  And I remember thinking that I probably should have mentioned that noise to Chris sometime BEFORE the hot water didn’t turn on.

Chris gets up and heads down to the basement, flashlight in hand, and shimmies up under the furnace to check the pilot light.  For the record, I don’t know what a furnace is or what a pilot light does, but I’m fairly certain it has something to do with my hot water.  When Chris couldn’t get the pilot to light, he let out a string of curse words that made me thankful we weren’t sitting in church.

He called his dad, who jokingly asked if we had paid our gas bill.  Of course we’ve paid our gas bill, I snap, offended that was even a thought.  But then I thought, “Wait a minute, I didn’t get our gas bill this month.”  In fact, just that morning before the attempt to shower, I had been on the phone with the gas company, trying to figure out why they hadn’t sent us a bill.  As fate would have it, there was no one working in customer service on a Sunday so I had just hung up and told myself I would call tomorrow.

But maybe that no bill thing was more important than I realized…

So I pick up the phone and call the gas company, only this time I called the emergency number you call if you have a gas leak.  This nice man picks up the phone, just as Chris comes in and announces the gas company has put a pin in our meter, effectively shutting off our gas.  This, as you can imagine, really, really pisses me off.  Naturally, I lash out at the first person I can get ahold of – this kind emergency repair man.  “Why did you shut our gas off???  We’ve paid every bill!  This is an error.  I need gas!  I have to take a shower!  I haven’t showered since Friday!  Turn it back on!”

The kind repair man explains the situation to me as best as he could explain something to an insane woman.  Apparently, the bill we have been paying was our OLD HOUSE’s gas bill.  We don’t even have an account at our new house with the gas company!  I don’t know why we’ve had gas here for as long as we have, but I guess the gas company just figured out they weren’t getting paid for the gas at our new address, and they put a pin in our meter.  They shut us down.

Damn the moving gods!  Just when you think you’re all settled in, just when you’re starting to feel like you’re at home, you realize you’ve been stealing gas and you can’t even take a warm shower.

So, tomorrow I will call the gas company and set up an account for the house where we’ve been living for three months.  If I thought I felt bad for my pew-mate this morning, I feel horrified for my co-workers tomorrow.  I still have not bathed, and tomorrow morning I will attempt to take a cold shower, but still.  It just ain’t clean if there’s no steam.

I haven’t figured out how, but I will find some way to blame this on Chris…  Just give me time…