One of the most unique things about living in rural Missouri is that we get to read our own water meter (which is fun to say with an affected British accent, as I learned from my sister--Holla, Megan! Try it: Wuah-tuh Mee-tuh. Be sure to be lilting).
The first time we were scheduled (shhheduled?) to read our own meter, I actually couldn't find it. I walked around and around the house looking for it, flipping open little panels, poking at strange cords and wires, all to no avail. Then Jeremy came home from work and pointed out a tiny manhole cover near the edge of the lawn. The water meter.
To read the water meter, you first have to pry open the metal lid, which is surprisingly heavy and seems perfectly content to stay nestled into its little spot on the lawn. Once you get the lid off, you have to ease out a little plastic cover, which will reveal nothing but darkness, sadness, spiders, and a little, tiny meter about a foot below ground. Then you have to steel yourself, reach in, and flip open the meter cover.
Once you've recorded the number, flip the lid closed, replace the other lids, and spend the next hour feeling like you have spiders trying to tickle their way into all of your darkest crevices. If that's not bad enough, you are surely welcome to reflect in despair about how much your water costs, even though you have to read your own meter.
Seriously, there ought to be a discount. Especially when the meter is covered in a foot of snow. Look forward to that.
1 comment:
Interesting. We only have one cover for our meter, the manhole type cover. But the dark & spiders are the same. Just paid the last of our thousand dollar, summer toilet break bill this morning. So glad to put that behind us.
One month last winter, the ground and the water-meter cover were frozen solid. I just figured what we usually use and made a guess, knowing that any difference would be worked out the next month.
If the water rates go up much further, we'll have to start collecting the rain water and showering at the community center. :)
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