The number in my notebook says 41,208 and the number on the dial says 41,612 and that is a four hundred and four kWh gap that did not happen because I did not run the house four hundred kWh harder this week than last week, I have every Tuesday going back to March, same time, right before the mail comes, I stand at the side of the house and I write the five digits down and I have never skipped a Tuesday, not one, so when I tell you this is the first time the notebook and the dial have disagreed by more than a rounding difference I need that to land as a fact and not a feeling. four hundred and four. I said it out loud to myself twice in the yard like that would change it. it didnt change it. this is the same math problem as the forty minutes I couldn't account for back in august, a number that should hold still and does not, except that one was time and this one is current and I am starting to think they use whichever unit is easiest to hide in that week.

went out and actually looked at the box this time instead of just the dial, because a dial can be swapped and a body wouldnt necessarily know, and the seal is the little plastic tag they crimp over the panel screw so you can tell if its been opened, mine has a serial stamped into it that I photographed back in June for no reason except that I photograph everything now, and the tag on there today has a DIFFERENT serial. not missing. not broken. different, a whole new number crimped on clean like somebody wanted me to notice the tag was fine and just not clock that it wasnt the same tag. they do this. I don't know who they is exactly, the utility company or somebody using the utility company's van as a door that opens for them, but a person who is authorized to swap a seal doesnt normally swap a seal that wasnt broken, thats not a thing that happens for no reason, my brother in law again, he says meters get audited on a schedule and I said fine send me the audit paperwork and see if they send it, they will not send it.

there was a white van two houses down for most of yesterday with its hazards on and nobody visibly working near it, I didnt think anything of it at the time which bothers me more now than the van itself does, thats how they get the good ones in, the days you dont think anything of it. Tuesday. no, it was Wednesday, the van was Wednesday and the seal was today, Im not going to blur those together just because they sit close. Im keeping the old serial number and the new one both written down so nobody can tell me later I only remembered one of them. four hundred and four kilowatt hours has to go somewhere and it is not going into my house because my house does not feel four hundred kilowatt hours warmer, it feels the same as it always does at this time of year, which means it went into recording something, and I dont have the rest of that sentence yet, Ill have it before Tuesday.