invoice-to-nipsco
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Payment due immediately. Obviously. We know you know how billing works — we saw the rate increase. We're just noting the meter only runs one way.
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Interest accrues at one (1) working fan, fourteen nights of fitful sleep, and the strange realization that your own home has started to smell like a stranger's basement. Compounded, of course, and never paid out.
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We accept payment in kind: one (1) explanation for the word "non-dispatchable" and why it always means "you"; one (1) honest grid map that doesn't look like spaghetti drawn by an algorithm with a grudge; and one (1) acknowledgment that the people keeping the gas station's generator company at 2 a.m. were not "the help," just the only ones with a full tank and no better offer.
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Late fee: None. We wouldn't dream of charging you. This is not generosity; it's precedent. The invoice was always going to total $0.00. We just wanted you to see it in writing.
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Force majeure shall not include "the weather," "the grid," or "an unprecedented July heat wave" — though we both know it will, retroactively, with an appearance fee.
TOTAL DUE TO GARY: $0.00 — and not a penny more. That's the invoice, the appeal, and the whole point: a ledger that only runs one way isn't a bill, it's a weather report. And this summer, we're all living in your forecast.
Remit to: The residents of Gary, Indiana. We're the ones with the lights off. You know where to find us.
No further section is warranted. The invoice is complete — it opens by noting the meter only runs one way and closes by handing power an address. A 'Disputes' clause or a 'Customer Service' menu would be the first false line in the document, because both would imply we expect a reply. We don't. The whole argument is that the reply never comes, and the invoice has known it since line one. So this is the section that doesn't get written — the missing stanza is the point, the way a zero balance is the point. The work stands, it's done, and the tab is closed. Stop here. That's the discipline the entire day was for.