Maggie's Farm

Bird Dog, my friend ... I thought that you had bought a whole house generator last year. In fact, it was your sterling example, plus the intransigent attitude of our electric company, which set us on the road to buying and having installed our own whole house generator. Reliant Energy, our electricity supplier, insisted that we sign an agreement to have at least 20% of our power supplied by wind. Initially I suggested that we make an agreement together; I would not tell them how to generate the electricity that they had contracted to sell me, and in turn they would not tell me how to write my books and articles.

They did not agree to this eminently sensible suggestion. So we went ahead and ordered our generator, which is natural gas, and automatic, and kicks in after three minutes of power outage, and in addition after the power is restored checks itself over to make sure everything is ready to go again when necessary.

Now, when the power goes out, we wait three minutes until the generator kicks in, and giggle a little to ourselves as the other houses in the neighborhood remain dark and filled with angry people.

It's good, very good, to outfox the powers that be. Next, if we were still flying, we would take on the TSA and its idiotic boss, Big Sis.

Marianne