Friday, October 07, 2005
It's giving me Gas
Up, Up and Away!
Wow, it's going to cost an arm and a leg to heat my house this winter. Possibly 50% more than year, which was outrageously expensive, even with my high-efficiency gas furnace. My only solace is that I don't have a boiler/radiator system like my friend Becky. Becky's got a kick ass four story row house in Columbia Heights, with an old cranky boiler. Last year her heating bill for January was...get this...$1,200... now add another 50% to that! And Beck and her husband aren't your typical DC -DINKS, she's a stay at home mom, so this will be brutal.
You'd think against this backdrop, that the American Gas Association would welcome the chance to talk about this issue and provide consumers with information so they could get ahead of what is likely to be a deluge of bad press this winter. That's what I was thinking when I called their communications department to request a story for the newsletter I publish at work. The newsletter (magazine actually) goes to about 10,000 folks who represent small employers across the country. A great opportunity to explain the situation and offer idea before the MSM gets a hold of this and beats it like a dead horse. So I was excited when they said they'd send over a piece by Friday...three weeks ago. They still haven's sent it over and now they won't return my calls....Oh well, I tried and I'll sit back and laugh and laugh all winter as you all fend off and try to spin bad story after bad story about your industry. I knew my local gas company PEPCO sucked...remember this (Third paragraph) "We Will Install Your Gas Service in March, If You're Lucky ". But I didn't know that would be the standard for the whole Gas Association.
Wow, it's going to cost an arm and a leg to heat my house this winter. Possibly 50% more than year, which was outrageously expensive, even with my high-efficiency gas furnace. My only solace is that I don't have a boiler/radiator system like my friend Becky. Becky's got a kick ass four story row house in Columbia Heights, with an old cranky boiler. Last year her heating bill for January was...get this...$1,200... now add another 50% to that! And Beck and her husband aren't your typical DC -DINKS, she's a stay at home mom, so this will be brutal.
You'd think against this backdrop, that the American Gas Association would welcome the chance to talk about this issue and provide consumers with information so they could get ahead of what is likely to be a deluge of bad press this winter. That's what I was thinking when I called their communications department to request a story for the newsletter I publish at work. The newsletter (magazine actually) goes to about 10,000 folks who represent small employers across the country. A great opportunity to explain the situation and offer idea before the MSM gets a hold of this and beats it like a dead horse. So I was excited when they said they'd send over a piece by Friday...three weeks ago. They still haven's sent it over and now they won't return my calls....Oh well, I tried and I'll sit back and laugh and laugh all winter as you all fend off and try to spin bad story after bad story about your industry. I knew my local gas company PEPCO sucked...remember this (Third paragraph) "We Will Install Your Gas Service in March, If You're Lucky ". But I didn't know that would be the standard for the whole Gas Association.
