My Good Deed

It was a good job I was home, and that I listened to the barking dogs instead of telling them to SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP. When I went out to see what all the commotion was about I found the oil guy just about to fill my tank.
What's wrong with that?
1) He wasn't my oil guy, he was one house away from his destination. He was new and unsurprisingly, he found the whole road name and numbering system confusing. It is but we do have house number all over the property now.
2) I had my tank filled last month.
What is the protocol when you get next door's oil delivered to your tank? Who sucks up that mistake? Just wondering....
File under: Incorporated Village, an alternate universe.

Oil Crisis

Shock, disbelief, wailing and gnashing of teeth. That pretty much describes yesterday when the oil company filled my tank. Oh, I knew it was coming. When we moved here in 2004 home heating oil cost $1:35 a gallon and it was predicted it would be over $3 way back last summer. So I had plenty of time to do the math, scream and enter the comfort of denial land. It hasn't helped that our bills have been pretty consistent over the years. Fuel prices went up but we became more economical and installed programmable thermostats, turned the temperature down and shut doors. We also replaced all those single pane windows, so we used less oil. Obviously this trade off had to stop sometime and that would be 01/07/08 when the price per gallon was $3:11. The bill was humongous. A whacking, walloping whole heap of cash is required to pay it.
Faced with the fact that there isn't much room for more energy efficiency, absent a new boiler or a change to gas, what to do? We could just do without heat or hot water, though that's not the way I'd choose to go. It might be 65 F here later today but I'm pretty sure we will need to put the heating on again this winter.
I'm thinking we might have to sell something. A cat, or a kidney or maybe that fabulous credenza.