Starting and Hopefully Ending

 Yesterday, I wrote about my difficulties with the electric company, who was trying to stick us with a bunch of charges and taxes on those charges for 4 months before we moved in here. As things stood then, I was awaiting a response to the email I sent with 10 attachments--pictures of each page of the lease. This morning, I got a letter in my email from Edwin, saying that he had approved the change to the move-in date because what I sent him at first didn't have the necessary information (it did) and what I sent him yesterday did (it repeated what I'd already sent him. He told me that to complete the process, I should call Customer Service. I did this and ended up listening to the screeching trumpet again--I loathe that trumpet! Then some guy came on who sounded like he was a teenager. He asked how he could help me and I explained as concisely as possible. 'Hang on 2 seconds while I check your account,' he said. Then, 'Yes, the move-in date of 5 June has been approved. Hang on 2 seconds while I change that for you.' I waited. Then he told me it was done and asked, 'And is there anything else I can help you with today?' 'Well, yes. The starting meter reading needs to be corrected. And the bill needs to be corrected, because now that you've removed 4 months from it, it will be quite a bit lower.' This seemed to throw him a bit (?!). He said, 'Hang on 2 seconds while I go check on this.' I was back to the trumpet for several minutes. Then I was informed that he was connecting me with someone who could actually do what I needed. And it seemed that she did. She removed the old bill, she said, as well as updated the account to show the correct start date. She told me I could expect a corrected bill in due course. I mentioned the starting meter reading. She left to check on that and when she came back, told me the one I gave her was correct--they checked remotely for that day. I asked about the postal address, which was also wrong on the incorrect bill. Apparently the guy I talked to last week did actually fix that because it's right now. I was feeling pretty hopeful that we were nearing the end of this annoying episode, but after supper, I saw I had a missed call and a voicemail from the electric company. My heart sank when the woman said she'd like to help me with my query, but since she couldn't reach me, I should call. Sigh. I called. Pressed all the buttons. Answered the security questions. The guy asked how he could help me. I said I wasn't sure, but was told to call. He had a look. The call was just to confirm the corrected move-in date. I confirmed that the old bill had been removed and he said it had been--I tend toward believing this because I noticed that when I was at the start of the call, the automated voice did not tell me what the balance was, as it had done before. So we live in hope that things are on track now.

In order to reward myself between conversations with the electric company, I took a walk to the library late this afternoon. I had a backpack full of books to return and 3 to pick up. I am definitely looking forward to these, especially this one:

This one is a short story collection:

And the last one I picked up today--I've read at least one other book by this author and it was quite good. I've become quite interested in the similarities between authoritarian societies and how they succumbed to tyrants. I'm curious to see what he has to say about this time in history. Based on the blurb, it seems like some of what he describes will seem very familiar.

For tonight, I plan to start the Yorkshire bibliomystery. Have any of you read it (or either of the other two)? If so, what did you think?

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