No, Nothing’s Wrong with My Gas Meter!

No, Nothing’s Wrong with My Gas Meter!

At the end of every month, the management office posts a form next to the elevator. Every apartment writes in its current gas meter reading. My neighbors are all in the thousands. My reading? 305. On the low side, but hey, we are the first occupants of the unit.

So the other day, while John and I were on the brink of death, the gas dude knocked on the door. Usually, he knocks because I miss the deadline and forget to write in my reading. This time, I was surprised to see him. He said he was here to get my gas reading. “Uh, didn’t I write it in already? 305. It’s 305.” He gives me this incredulous look. “Are you sure? It can’t be right: it’s too low. It hardly changed from last month.” “It’s right,” I counter. “I don’t use the gas much… but if you don’t believe me, come on in and see for yourself.” Jesus, do you need me to spell it out or what? I DON’T COOK! Why? Because I can’t, ok? Are you happy now?

So the dude comes in and sure enough, the meter reads 305. But he’s STILL not convinced. He proceeds to light both my stovetops to watch the meter run! Finally, he accepts that my reading is legit. As if to lessen the blow, he suggests that I was overseas last month. Uh no, I wasn’t. Sigh.

This evening, John explained my whole culinary disability like this: he likens my ineptitude in the kitchen to his incompetence with assembling furniture. He tries to do it and he wants to do it, but it just never works out. Nice comparison, except that I actually look at directions, whereas he just assembles straight out of the box. Oh well, gave me a laugh to think about that time he assembled some piece of furniture, and the shelf couldn’t pull out right because he put the face on upside down.

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