Water bill mishap

Don't let them estimate. I don't know what it's like everywhere, but if you live in my town you must remember to phone or mail in your water meter reading. (Take this as a warning) After Mack was born I missed doing that, but knew they would just estimate it and we'd get back on track next time. Not really thinking about it, we got a bill that was a lot lower than usual. Now they had been billing us every three months so you can see why things get forgotten. So anyway I thought that was strange but something in my memory suggested that maybe they had switched to billing monthly, so I paid it and made a mental note. Apparently my memory these days is rather poor because time went by and it's time for another bill. Pay it (at the new lower amount) and put it aside. Add in here also Christmas, New Years, and a sleep deprived Momma/bill payer. Fast forward a couple more month to this week. I'm flipping through the channels and come across the local channel with the notices on it and there is one from the town, reminding people to call/mail in the meter readings and letting us know the no longer do the door to door readings. Hmmm.... okay I better do that and see what's up. Well I read the meter and compare it to the last bill. After some head scratching and figuring I find that we have been really under estimated the last two billings. I don't know what the units are but we usually average about 20,000 a billing period which is indeed three months. (no monthly billing after all) Okay so that happened the last two times totalling a usage of 40,000. We were estimated and billed for only 3000 each totalling 6000. That means we're owing for ... well a lot! I call the town office to give them my new reading and ask them why the estimate is so low, when it's obvious our average is much higher, and she basically said the system sets it at the minimum so they don't over bill. How many people really only use 3000 a month. A single person that works all day maybe? Seriously! So let this be your warning....

READ YOUR WATER METER REGULARLY!