|
William frowned. He had just received his electricity bill and was shocked. “5.6 million a month” he grumbled.
“What’s wrong dear?” said Mabel
“The electricity bill, 5.6 million for one month” he said
“Never mind dear. Have a nice cup of tea”
“Go and stick your tea up your left ventricle dear!” he snorted. “I am not paying 5.6 million a month for electricity”.
“He is not a happy chappie” thought Mabel as she poured the tea, leaves and all over his bald head and walked assertively from the room. Too many years of living with this grumpy old sod had taught her not to be faint hearted in the face of impoliteness.
William and Mabel had built their dream villa on a hillside overlooking the sea. They had built additional self contained rooms so that in their retirement they could have a regular stream of visitors to stay. As a result they had installed three phase power which they knew would be considerably more expensive but had not anticipated anything like this.
It was true they had been living a pretty wasteful lifestyle with lights and air conditioners left on when not needed and copious use of every appliance ever invented but, after all, you can only use so many nasal hair clippers at once can't you?
They had the circuits and electricity usage checked. No they didn't have leaking hot water taps and weren't inadvertently supplying power to a neighbourhood aluminium smelter. No strange wires coming from the meter box and disappearing into the undergrowth.
They had brought an electric kettle from back home, a super dooper machine that boiled water faster than you could say “I would like a nice up of tea and could you please put the kettle on”. It certainly boiled water very fast but took a huge 2 kilowatts of power to do it, there was a label on the bottom proudly proclaiming the fact that this harmless looking little machine could put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in five seconds than the Flying Scotsman on the run between London and Glasgow. Two Kilowatts is the equivalent of two electric fires! One kettle having five times the total power that most Indonesians have for their whole house!
The ramifications for the electric bill are not insignificant. For William having a peak load (maximum current) available to satisfy such a hungry beast certainly increased the cost per kilowatt but still it didn't come anywhere near to Rp5.6 million a month.
Closer inspection of the bill revealed that this was a fixed minimum charge per month.
“That can't be right” said William, once more starting to lose his sense of gay abandon.
“Like another cup of tea?” said Mabel “you spilt your last one.”
“No Thanks” William mumbled as he shuffled out to check on the goldfish.
William spent a disturbed night with nightmares of being a penniless fugitive sleeping under bridges and getting chased by an electricity man with an unpaid bill for Rp 5 billion.
The following day he went off on the long trip into town to talk to the electricity company. The place was packed with people when he got there all trying to pay their bills.
After sitting waiting for an hour William started to feel uneasy. You know that sick feeling you get when you slowly become aware that everyone around you are holding little tickets with numbers on and you don't have one. For the past hour people have been crowding into this place and getting a number and you didn't know there was a “system”.
Flipping heck he thought. Hidden in a corner he found a bent spike holding plastic squares with a badly worn numbers scrawled on them.
“A582 ke loket lima” said a voice.
William looked down at the card with D734 in large numbers written on it.
Another hour passed.
Eventually a smiling girl called his number.
“How can I help you?” she attempted to say in demolished rather than broken English.
He showed her the bill.
“What is this minimum monthly charge?” he asked.
“That is how much you have to pay each month” she said.
“But why Rp 5 million?” he said. “That is far more than the power I am using.”
“Oh that's in your contract,” said the helpful smiling girl.
“Contract” he said “what contract?”
“The contract you signed to have your power connected” she replied.
“But I didn't sign a contract.”
He was about to really lose the plot when his eye caught sight of a steaming cup of coffee in the girl's hand. He counted to ten, then to twenty, thirty came and went, forty and ...... By five hundred and forty seven he started to find some demeanour hidden in the distant crevices of his brain.
“Can I see this contract?” he whispered carefully.
The girl went off and came back 10 minutes later with a legal document in her hand. It was all in Indonesian and he didn't understand a word of it. Finally managing to stifle the desire to strangle someone and getting his act together William asked for a photocopy and quickly fled to a nearby field where his bellow of frustration could be blamed on the cows.
....the girl sipped her nice hot coffee.”Strong coffee” she thought.
Then William got organised and went to see his notaris. She explained the meaning of the document to him. He had agreed to pay RP 5.6 million a month for the next five years to pay for the supply of electricity to his property.
It was quickly noted that the signature on the bottom of the contract was not William's or his wife's or anyone he knew. The notaris did her stuff. Enquiries revealed that in fact the contract had been signed by someone in the electricity supply office “on William's behalf”. What a kind thoughtful man.
Further enquiries revealed that the money was in fact to pay for the erection of poles and cables to carry power a kilometre down the road past William's house to the next village.
The final outcome when everything had been sorted out was that the bills came down to a far more reasonable “less than two million.”
William threw away his electric kettle and bought a far lower powered, though somewhat slower, local model. He also threw away the electric nasal hair clippers and that motorised toothbrush that made his teeth rattle. He continues to examine his electric bills and the ongoing mission to reduce his power consumption has given his life new meaning. He even got his “gay abandon” back.
As William found out it is important to check your electricity bills. He also discovered that a Notaris can be very useful with legal documents and contracts. Most importantly he learned that it pays to be very respectful around woman bearing hot drinks.
Phil Wilson
|
