Over the past few years, I�ve made the mistake of thinking that our local utility companies were working on driving me crazy. Periodically, I received notices that asked me to be home so that they could move their meters to the outside of the house. They claimed that doing so would ultimately cause me less inconvenience and, while I suppose over the long run that was true, I was convinced that even if they moved the meters they would find other ways to inconvenience me. They haven�t and now that John Ashford is pushing his TIPS program I realize that they have been trying to protect my privacy all along.

I�ve thought of apologizing now that I am beginning to absorb the paradigm shift that tells me that the gas and electric company is my friend. I even thought of sitting down and writing them a letter but I was afraid that they might consider a kind note suspicious. Wouldn�t you consider a kind note suspicious if you were a utility company? Heck, it might be so suspicious that it would need to be reported to TIPS, especially if no one enters my house and they therefore can�t report the truly suspicious things like the occasional lack of underpants in the wash for a child who will not be named to protect the guilty.

Besides, how could anyone write to a place that went from calling itself a sensible name like Wisconsin Electric-Wisconsin Gas to WEenergies and thinks this change was a good one? Dear WEenergies. It sounds like the beginning of a letter to an Oscar Meyer project or something else that I won�t name.

So, instead of expressing my thanks to my local utilities for making it harder for John Ashcroft to get TIPS on me, I think I�ll turn to appreciating someone more deserving�myself. I�ll give myself a pat on the back for never installing cable TV. There�ll be no cable guy to tell the government that my husband has a marijuana tax stamp exhibit (which they could learn from going to stamp shows of course but why go out in public when you can learn things in private.) There�ll be no cable guy to tell the government that (gasp!) I just completed the highly suspicious act of buying a new iron. (Shhh! Don�t tell Bev.)

All these years, I actually thought we were not getting cable because it was expensive and it would just cause us to watch more bad television. In more recent years, I thought we were not getting cable so that my children would have to suffer through being popular culture illiterates and would have to restrict seeing that horribly stupid Spongebob creature in motel rooms. No, deep down, I must have sensed that getting cable would put my privacy at risk.

So, with my strange mailman belonging to an organization that says it will not be giving TIPS, I might be safe. Then again, perhaps not. I do wonder whether the electrician thinks it suspicious that our light over the washer keeps blowing out. Recently, it seems as though we have a standing date with that electrician. I had thought his job was to make Mr. Philately feel more humble but perhaps even that need is suspicious.

Hmmm. I may be washing clothes in the dark from now on. Surely that�s not too big a sacrifice to make to stay safe from John Ashcroft�s TIPS.

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