Some days just have a way of putting a smile on your face—if you look at them the right way. I got a couple of emails this morning that tickled my very peculiar funny bone. First I received this:
Actually I added the last line because that’s what went through my head. BTW the actual message was from a bank I only rarely do business with. I’ve withheld their name to preclude embarrassment (and potential lawsuits). 🙂
The next message is one of those, “only in California” things.
It all looks so simple…, until you try to understand it. I don’t even try to figure out how California calculates energy bills. Yes, the local power company is theoretically independent, but it is ridiculously highly regulated with a spaghetti bowl of laws that should only be consumed with copious tomato sauce and meatballs…, and garlic, lots of garlic.
Years ago, during one of our frequent fire seasons, it was determined that a particularly destructive wildfire started when a utility pole’s wire broke in the wind (Or maybe it was hit by lightning. I don’t remember which.) It hit the ground and ignited the brush underneath. The thousands who lost their homes (and their insurance companies no doubt) sued the power company for hundreds of millions in compensation since they couldn’t sue the state for refusing to clear dead brush in the state forests or public easements. (Wouldn’t want to hurt a dead tree.)
That would, of course, have bankrupted the power company, so the state felt compelled to step in. They passed a law separating the “electric generation” from the “electric delivery” and then took responsibility for the delivery (ie, the power poles) although they still let the power companies charge their customers for the use of said poles to deliver electricity and charge you for the delivery. Hence it’s the state you have to try to sue if a power pole accident burns down your neighborhood, or your whole city.
Electric generation in California is the state’s attempt to provide service to residents by simultaneously lowering costs and eliminating supply. No, I did not mistype that. Some things only make sense in Sacramento. First they got rid of the dirty mining industry. Then they got rid of nuclear generation because, as Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon told us, we’re all gonna’ die horrible deaths if we use those evil potential nuclear bombs to generate our power. Eventually, they came for all the coal fired plants and the refineries since everything comes from the sun and the wind now, right? Reminds me of a guy I met once at a party way back in the 80’s. He explained his brilliant idea, putting little whirligigs on a car. They would catch the wind as the car moved along and power generators to run the car. Who knows, maybe he’s in Sacramento now? Life is easy when you don’t understand basic physics.
Of course, your real question is how do I get away with such an absurdly low monthly utility bill? First, I live within a mile of the beach in San Diego where the temperature varies from 60 degrees to 85 degrees for 350 days out of 365, so my electricity is mostly used to type essays like this. Who needs solar panels? I could probably run my house with a couple of hamsters. Still, if you add up the first 3 numbers, it comes to about $91, but then you come to “State Fees, Taxes, & Other”. “Other” must be doing a lot of work there because I don’t recall any negative taxes and fees. Must be some kind of new math. I do seem to recall some message last year about how California was going to charge me beaucoup bucks for energy during the summer, so they could give some of it back to me during the winter–something about reducing homelessness by not driving people to the streets to get warm during winter since they couldn’t afford to heat their houses. Right!
I tell myself I’m a smart guy, so I could of course delve into that huge spaghetti bowl of laws and regulations and figure it out…, or I could pay my $16.25 and just smile and whistle.
I think I’ll just smile and whistle.
Musings of a Restless Mind 