NYT OPINION: The Monster in My Home Was a Meter, and It Decided Whether I Ate and Slept
By Kerry Hudson
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: December 30, 2022 at 02:00AM
Small but cruel, it could be found under the stairs, sometimes in the kitchen. You had to feed it with coins, later with cards and keys, or be punished. When there wasn’t anything to feed it, everything would go dark. The TV turned off, whatever you were cooking stopped bubbling on the stove, the shower ran cold and the food in the refrigerator started to spoil. That monster could stop us from bathing, eating or sleeping. It could, and did, make us ill. And it followed us, a single-parent working-class family, up and down the country, from one damp and drafty home to the next, no matter how often we fled to what we hoped was a fresh start.
The monster was a prepayment meter. The Meter, as it was called in our house. Effectively a slot machine for pay-as-you-use energy. Some people have meters that can be topped up online, but typically you go to your local convenience store or post office, add money to your card, take it home and insert it into the Meter. You can use energy until your credit runs out. When it does, you’re given about $12 of “emergency credit,” but you’ll need to repay that the next time you top up, before anything goes toward energy.
The saying goes, if you want to add tension to a story add a ticking clock. That’s my memory of the Meter. We’d get down on our knees daily — somehow they were always placed to force you prostrate before them — and stare disbelievingly as the numbers ticked down. A literal countdown on top of all of the other stresses of trying to get a too-small income to stretch through the day, week or month.
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By Kerry Hudson
Section: Opinion
Source: New York Times
Published Date: December 30, 2022 at 02:00AM
Seven million homes in Britain ticking down to silence, dark and cold.
GLASGOW — I grew up in a string of dilapidated slum rentals, project housing and homeless hostels. I grew up with a monster in most of those homes.Small but cruel, it could be found under the stairs, sometimes in the kitchen. You had to feed it with coins, later with cards and keys, or be punished. When there wasn’t anything to feed it, everything would go dark. The TV turned off, whatever you were cooking stopped bubbling on the stove, the shower ran cold and the food in the refrigerator started to spoil. That monster could stop us from bathing, eating or sleeping. It could, and did, make us ill. And it followed us, a single-parent working-class family, up and down the country, from one damp and drafty home to the next, no matter how often we fled to what we hoped was a fresh start.
The monster was a prepayment meter. The Meter, as it was called in our house. Effectively a slot machine for pay-as-you-use energy. Some people have meters that can be topped up online, but typically you go to your local convenience store or post office, add money to your card, take it home and insert it into the Meter. You can use energy until your credit runs out. When it does, you’re given about $12 of “emergency credit,” but you’ll need to repay that the next time you top up, before anything goes toward energy.
The saying goes, if you want to add tension to a story add a ticking clock. That’s my memory of the Meter. We’d get down on our knees daily — somehow they were always placed to force you prostrate before them — and stare disbelievingly as the numbers ticked down. A literal countdown on top of all of the other stresses of trying to get a too-small income to stretch through the day, week or month.
Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/30/opinion/prepayment-meters-uk.html
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