By all prognostications, spring is arriving in the Washington DC area today. It's supposed to be sunny, with temperatures reaching into the 60s. With that kind of weather, the record snowstorms of a month ago, and the rainy deluge of a few days ago that finally washed away most of the snow, will soon be forgotten, even as some low-lying areas have been flooded.
Now, however, we deal with some of the quirky unexpected consequences.
We got a credit card bill yesterday stating that the previous month's payment was overdue. What previous month's payment? We hadn't received any bill. We don's use this card a lot, so we hadn't thought to check online, in fact we haven't even set up online connection to this account. Thinking back, we recalled the time of the snowstorms, when USPS did not make delivery in our neighborhood for five days running. That was almost exactly a month ago, so presumably, our bill would have come during that period. The thing is, though, it still hasn't shown up! When service finally did resume after the snow, there was no big batch of accumulated mail, just the normal allotment of a few catalogs and other bulk mailings. So I have to wonder, where did all that accumulated mail go, and will it ever turn up?
Also in the mail yesterday was the quarterly water and sewage bill. The water is the last of the utility meters that's still read by an actual person walking around to each meter, and after the snow, the meter-reader wouldn't have been able to find the meter. So, they estimated. A reasonable approach, except that the cold weather must have caused a brain freeze somewhere -- instead of estimating based on last winter, their billing was based on the autumn quarter, when people were still watering gardens and such, so the amount is three times what it ought to be. The difference is about $250, so at my request, they're coming today to do a real reading.
A snowstorm isn't a hurricane or earthquake, and its consequences are far less catastrophic and tragic. Even so, beyond the obvious fallout like collapsed roofs, broken trees, and reduced sales for almost all retail establishments, it's interesting to see how the last little ripples still wash up unexpectedly into our daily lives.
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