My Kingdom

A theme, a theme, my kingdom for a theme.

For want of a theme, a post was lost.  For want of a post….a number of readers escaped excruciating boredom.  Oh Hell, I’ll just do what other bloggers do.  If I can’t think of anything in particular, I’ll just write about the scraps rattling around at the bottom of the waste paper basket.

I got a postcard the other day!  I thought that the digital age had rendered them obsolete.  I shouldn’t have worried.  It was hand-delivered for a local Real Estate agent.  As a piece of advertising, I think it works well.  It’s glossy printed, front and back.  On the front is a picture of the lady, vertically at one end, and a photo of a local house, with a red banner proclaiming, *Sold In Three Weeks*.  The address is given and below it, the address also becomes the website, 80oprington.com.  Someone’s planning ahead.  In five years, when the new young owners want to sell and move on, that website can be reactivated.

On the back is every kind of contact information, office address, office phone, cell phone, VirginiasHomes.ca and the same as an email address.  Also, the card is a gift certificate for a free home staging consultation if you list with her. I’m impressed; of course that doesn’t take much.  I think she covered all the bases and got maximum value for the cost of these.

About ten years ago, we were sitting, reading one evening, and suddenly all the lamps went out.  We have little nightlights in several outlets, and they remained on.  Strange, says I, along with several other, more colorful comments.  I went around the house, turning various things on and off.  Some worked, some didn’t. I turned the oven elements on, and all the lamps came back on, but dimly.  We called the emergency number for our local electricity provider, and about an hour later, we had a crew arrive.

The company says that they are responsible for everything up to the house.  After that, it’s my responsibility.  When I described what was happening, they headed for the electrical meter, and pulled it out.  Like an appliance plug, it just pushes in on four prongs.  Sure enough, one of the prongs had burned off.  The crew foreman said it was likely caused by vibration from traffic on the thoroughfare that runs behind my house.

Oh good, it’s their meter; it’s their problem.  Not so fast, grasshopper.  The meter didn’t fail.  When we plug it in, the prong is inside your house, and it was the prong that failed.  Ah yes, great bureaucrat master, I get to pay.  What a surprise!  Actually, the labor was covered, but I became the proud owner of one of the Province’s first, electronic, time-of-use meters.  The rest of the reporting/billing system didn’t go into effect for another eight years.

These are designed to bill higher for usage at peak times, and less in evenings and weekends, to encourage energy conservation.  There was a big rush to install them on any home in the Province without one, and finally, we were billed on a sliding scale.  Two years later, the power supplier to our twin city to the north is requesting the right to add $2/mo. to the bills, for thirty months, to recoup the capital outlay.  I paid for mine long ago.  You didn’t think the rest were going to get theirs for free, did you?

The company that provides to my city just quietly went ahead and added $1.49/mo. to cover their costs….except for customers who use less than 50KwH/mo.  Those they charge $1.99/mo.  If I ever think I understand the bureaucratic mind, you can expect me to run screaming from the building.  Wouldn’t total meter cost, divided by number of months, always equal $1.49, no matter how much power you use?  And charge more, to those who use less, that’ll teach you to conserve!

I scan through the items-for-sale ads each day, watching for a couple of items, for myself and others.  I got my daughter 30 balls of Angora yarn for a buck apiece, a couple of weeks ago.  I am amused and entertained by some of the ads.  Engagement ring for sale.  Never worn. Paid $3500. Will sell $1850.  Damn!  A guy with some money, and he was ready to commit, and she turned him down??  That relationship did not end well.

Ladies shorts and jeans, size 16.  Never worn.  Call xxx-xxxx, after six.  Great hopes and plans, but the diet just didn’t work out.  Jennie Craig will buy them.

The page begins with free articles.  Sometimes people want to get rid of something but don’t want it to go to the dump.  Reduce, reuse, recycle, the blue box program started in this city.  At least one of the *I’m too Duh-mb for my shirt*s works at the local paper.  Under free items; 50 paving stones.  You pick up.  Eight pcs. 2x4x8ft.  Call Bob.  Brown leather jacket size 36.  $50.  Black and Decker orbital sander.  $35.  Somebody doesn’t understand the concept of FREE.  Maybe that’s the file-clerk from my old office.

P. T. Barnum said, You’ll never go broke underestimating the stupidity of the general population, and I’d be a fool to doubt him.