Wherein I Bitch About Bad Statistics

[peristaltor]

My power company sends out these Home Electricity Reports every year or so, just to let folks know how they are doing in comparison to their neighbors (those within a one mile radius, at least). Wouldn't you know it? I finally mad the naughty list of those who suck waaay too much power through that wire. Ah, but did I drastically change into a incandescent holiday display weirdo, or start practicing with my Tesla coil-based garage band?

Watch on YouTube

Not me.

No. What I did is below, in the letter I just sent them. Enjoy.

Dear Power People,

I just got your "Home Report" in the mail, and I have a quibble: it's nonsense.

Don't get me wrong; this is not nonsense I noticed before, either. But really, am I now, after years of moderate use according to your previous letter, suddenly an average over-user of energy compared to my neighbors in a 1 mile radius?

No, no I am not, when one factors in that I bought an electric car last year. But then I realized: you don't know that, do you? I mean, how would you?

And that got me thinking: you don't know that my wife and I also rely on an electric water heater and range/oven as well, and that our prime television is a smaller (relatively, anyway) LCD, not a wall-sized mongo plasma monster.

Which got me to thinking even more: what if you gave everyone a survey asking about what power suckers we have in the house, uh, before you accuse us of being "energy" spendthrifts?

Until you actually do that, please take us off what I am renaming your shaming list. You're preaching to the choir here, and we're having none of it.

Sincerely,

Perry Staltor

Oh, and I decided not to supply any other identifying information on my part because, hey, it doesn't matter to the overall Report: unless you have everyone's data, you may as well have no one's.