Summerific

I got home last week at our condo unit after a REALLY long workday. After dropping everything I had with me on our landing area, I grabbed the Meralco bill that was attached on the fridge via a wooden Boracay barracuda magnet. I thought I had a coronary. Four frickin' thousand for the month of April alone. And we didn't even acquire new appliances from the previous month! We rarely watch TV (because we do not have cable), rarely cook (because the exhaust fan's busted), and barely light up our flat (and still use energy-saving light bulbs for that matter).

Hoping against hope that this was due to an incorrect meter reading, I dialed Meralco's call center. Five days later, and a day beyond the due date for payment, I got a response: Nope. Nuthin' wrong with the reading. 'Twas absofrickinlutely accurate. Damnation.

I called the management of the condo unit, to petition for an inspection of our meter...as there might have been some abnormality involved, say a miswiring or something. I was told that it wasn't only our unit that had skyrocketing electric bills; that other units who are barely home got bills higher by two thousand pesos from a "normal" billing; that other units who didn't use to use their a/c's and that used them for TWO days now have at least additional eight hundred pesos on their bills. Great. Like knowing that I wasn't alone in my misery would help ease the burden of being four frickin thousand poorer. Whoohoo! Hallelujah. We are ALL poorer this summer. Argh.

Don't you just detest it when you really cannot do much about somethin? I mean, I could, for the sake of argument, stop using my a/c...but who gets annoyed in the end over a few kilowatts savings?

And to think summer ain't at its hottest yet. Mother of God...let it snow.