Atmos Energy - the Beauty of MonopolyAlt: Life is NOT Too Short

Jonny has become an Energy Geek of late. Mrs. Jonny prefers the term "Energy Nazi", but that's another story. The findings of this glorious journey will be posted in the future. That's not important now. So don't ask. FOCUS please!

What's relevant today is that Jonny has been checking his electric meter periodically to see if his own readings are correct. When the latest natural gas bill arrived from the lovely, talented, and sexy Atmos Energy, it just didn't look right. Doesn't "Atmos" sound like a stripper's name? You know, one of those strippers that thinks she's smart and therefore picks a "smart"-sounding name? Just close your eyes and imagine the deep-voice guy saying "Coming to the Maaaaain Stage - it's ATMOS!".

Anyway, how the FUCK did the Jonny Household use more than double the amount of natural gas usually consumed in summer months during the month of August? La Hacienda de Jonny uses gas only for heat and hot water - everything else is electric. Ummm, yeah, uhhh, so, we're not running the heat much in Texas during the summer, and I'm pretty sure we didn't suddenly use a shit-ton of extra hot water. It's not like a pregnant woman went into labor and we suddenly needed lots of extra hot water. So Jonny decided to train his awesome Meter-Reading Skillz (WAY more valuable and sexy than nun-chuck skillz, bow-hunting skills, or computer-hacking skillz) on the natural gas meter in an effort to determine who was getting kicked in the twat.


SURPRISE!!! That infallible, monolithic, monopolistic, sexy little vixen Atmos seemed to have made a mistake (GASP!). Time for a Cunt-Punt. According to the bill, it had been a week since that little tramp read Jonny's gas meter, yet the current reading on the meter was STILL less than the reading that the dirty bitch claimed on Jonny's bill. I guess her rent was due and she was a little short because of the money she dumped into the slots at Winstar or on a new pair of shoes with clear heels. All good - Jonny thought he would just call that bitch out and get his money back.

"Why bother Jonny? If they read the meter wrong this time and then read it correctly next time, wouldn't you just pay less next month, and it would even itself out?"

WRONG!!! Here's the problem. Gas prices are not constant. Gas Utility Companies like Atmos charge a fixed rate for the DELIVERY of natural gas, and then they tack on a rider charge that adjusts each month to track the market price of natural gas. In other words, at least according to the claims of Atmos, they don't make any more or less money because of the fluctuations in the cost of natural gas - they simply deliver it for a fee and charge Jonny for whatever the extra costs were for them to buy the gas that they provide.

Well, the rider charge for this current bill was the highest it's EVER BEEN IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND!!! The wholesale price of natural gas peaked in July at a little over $13.00 per thousand cubic feet ($/MCF). Since then, it has plunged down to its current cost of around $8.00/MCF. The bright kids in Jonny's class have already caught on. Sit quietly while Jonny explains it for the other dumbasses in the class. You have to put up with the dumbfucks because your parents don't love you enough to send you to private school. Deal with it.

So if they charged Jonny for more gas than I used in August, and then I pay for LESS than I use in September, and the price of gas as reflected in their Rider Charge has fallen dramatically between those two billing cycles (which it did), Jonny ends up paying a higher price for the total gas usage in those two months than he should. Seems simple right? Well, Atmos may be sexy, but she's DUMB as a FUCKING STUMP.

Now, I'm sure that Atmos' customer service representative is a nice lady. She leaves work at 5:00 on the dot every day, yet she makes sure that her husband's Hungry Man Dinner and Pabst Blue Ribbon is on the TV tray when he gets home from the construction site. And before she goes to bed she makes sure his sleeveless Pittsburgh Steelers t-shirt is starched and ready for morning. She probably even styles her kids' spiky-mullet hairdos in her own back yard while they play in the 14" deep plastic swimming pool from the Wal-Mart. But intelligent and insightful she is not.

As Jonny tried to explain his problem to this lovely young, toothless, gravy-and-bacon-lovin' lady, there were uncomfortably-long periods of silence between when Jonny concluded a statement or a question and when the Mississippi Queen responded. If this strumpet seemed a lot more on-the-ball, Jonny might think that she had Jonny on Mute and was calling her co-workers over to nominate Jonny for the "Asshole Caller of the Week" award. But she ain't that smart. Jonny can only imagine that she was sitting in her 6x6 cubicle with her mouth hanging open widely trying to comprehend what this strange man on the line was talking about. It turns out that the bill was "Estimated" - they didn't even TRY to read it. The explanation Jonny got was that the meter-reader-guys were helping the field-guys do maintenance and didn't read the meters this month. Sounds like bullshit to me. If this happened on a large scale, Jonny is gonna cry "Shenanigans! Conspiracy!!!" and then put on his tinfoil hat and write his congressman using only letters snipped from the newspaper.

Jonny shits you not - this Daughter of the Blessed Inbreeding said FOUR times, "We estimate your bill based upon your usage during the same period last year". Thank you, oh sacred offspring of Nell and Forrest Gump - I GOT THAT! It was like when you call technical support and get one of those phone banks in India and some cheerful Hindu named "Reggie" has no clue what you are talking about, so he just repeats random lines from his script, taking care to insert "Please and thank you!" at the end of every statement.

At one point, she had the nerve to tell Jonny - "It's not going to make THAT much of a difference in your bill anyway". BINGO! Thank you for small favors Jesus. "Okay, then if it's not worth worrying about - why don't YOU pay it? Cool? Cool!"

Then when Jonny tried to explain to her than Jonny should not be penalized for the mistake of her company, she quickly retorted that "It wasn't a mistake. We just didn't read your meter." Oh, excuse me, I'm sorry, Jonny should not be penalized because YOU DIDN'T DO YOUR FUCKING JOB!!!

Jonny should call her a CUNT, but she's not smart enough. If she actually understood what the problem was and had the nerve to dispute it, THEN she would be a Cunt. So, I guess what Jonny is saying is that she doesn't merit the compliment of the sweet, sweet "C" word. In other words, you have not yet been promoted to the rank of Cunt.

So finally, Jonny dropped the word that every CSR loves/hates - "escalate", as in "Please escalate me to someone who has a fucking clue what I'm talking about, because you have proven yourself too stupid". She transferred me to another gem of rural culture who finally agreed to let Jonny tell her what his meter reading SHOULD have been, and she adjusted Jonny's bill accordingly. Of course, she dropped the same lines on Jonny initially - "It will work itself out" and "We estimate your bill based upon...".

Now normally, Jonny would have worked his blood pressure up into Old Faithful range, complete with red-hot ears and beet-red extremities, but not this time. Maybe Jonny realized that he was just fucking with them, because in-between seemingly angry statements to the unfortunate women that happened to catch Jonny's call, Jonny was explaining to Mrs. Jonny what he was bitching about and air-humping them a la Teddy KGB. Take it ALL Bitch!! Or maybe Jonny has just reached the point in his insanity that he HOPES that someone fucks him over just so that he has something to bitch about.

Anyway, it looks like it all got worked out, and Jonny got a good laugh from terrorizing two unfortunate women whose only failing was to make the words "help you" into FIVE syllables.

"But Jonny, I'm confused. What did you mean when you titled this post "Life is NOT Too Short"?

Well, in the summertime in the Great State of Texas, a double-fucking on Jonny's gas bill represents an extra 1.9 MCF in gas charges. And the difference in the Rider Charge between August and September is about $3.18 per MCF. So yeah, Jonny spent 20 minutes on the phone today to dispute an overcharge of about six bucks. Jonny is pretty sure that his cell phone minutes for a 20-minute call will cost more than $6.00.

But Jonny doesn't give a fuck. As a great man once told me, "People (who work in customer service) should not get paid to be rude to me". It was a definite matter of principal, and in the end Jonny won by STANDING UP for what is RIGHT. TRUTH, JUSTICE, and the AMERICAN WAY, bitches!!!

Or maybe Jonny truly just loves to fuck with people.

♥ Love you long time, unless you talk to random people on the phone for a living.