Entry for 11th August, 2008

I mentioned in my last posting that I have been carefully attending to the family budget. This unusual attention to monetary matters has been brought on by The Mother of All Gas Bills.
I have been living in my little corner of Glasgow now for two and a half years. During that time, it appears that we have - from time to time - been using gas. I knew this, of course. At the back of my mind I knew it because we have a standing order whereby each month - by the miracle of the modern banking system - I pay my gas bill.
Well. Some of my gas bill.
Apparently the £10 per month that I have been contributing is not quite enough. Apparently those lovely people at Scottish Gas have been using "estimated bills" for the past 30 months. I am not sure how they arrived at these estimate. I suspect that, in their records, my house is four feet square and populated by an arctic hare, some stones and a snowball.
Now. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking - "You are a fool Alan B" to think that £10 per month is enough to keep you and your little family cozy. Surely you must have know that there was a day of reckoning coming."
And that is a reasonable thought for you to have, if you are the sort of person who ever bothers to read their bank statement. However, I am not like you. I am the sort of person who believes that it is improper to forcibly evict the little bank statment from its comfy and bijou envelope. I feel that it is not for me to rip it from its slumber. So, instead I pile the envelopes up in little corners of the house - a few here on top of the sofay; a few there under this festering block of cheese that I am keeping for a rainy day.
Imagine my surprise when I was asked to provide a real reading of the meter. I cheerfully phoned this in to the lovely automated lady at Scottish gas.
Imagine my delight when I discovered that I have been underpaying! How I laughed as I read that I owe two and a half grand to Scottish Gas.
It has really made my day.