Crisis Resolved: Details and Thanks

Thank you, everybody — for your concern and your assistance.

Here’s the skinny:

As I said — minor emergency. We got back home yesterday late afternoon from dropping the kid at college, only to discover that we had no power.

Shut off for non-payment. WTF?!? Sez we…. Y’see, about a month or so ago, I set up our electric bill to electronic-only. They’d stop mailing us bills (wasteful use of paper), and we’d take care of everything online. I had yet to receive a bill notification, though — so I assumed that it would be taking effect on the next cycle, and that Laura would still receive a paper bill in the mail. She, naturally, did not — and assumed that because she received no bill, that I had received an electronic one.

See where this is going?

What is it they say about assuming?

Turns out that my spam filter ate the notification. So, no pay, and no power.

Normally, not a problem — however, the timing: Just drove cross-country, dropped kid at college, got her all of the needed college-starting supplies, stayed at hotels, drove back across the country (with gas at $3.50 a gallon) — plus the kid (and ‘s ) birthday is this coming weekend. We rode our budget out to the fumes in the tank — Friday is payday, but also largely spoken for with September rent. The last thing we were prepared for was this power bill situation.

Boy, do I feel like an idiot.

Thanks to a bunch of good friends, however, we managed to get things sorted — and only had to wait until 11:00 this morning to get things turned back on (Last night’s emergency post was thanks to a battery-powered laptop and a nearby neighbor’s unsecured wireless network!). Spent the night in the dark, but everything is hunky-dory now.

Power’s back, we’re back, and I’ll make sure to pay you all back. You were life savers.