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For years now, every few months I receive a failing grade as a good citizen.  Every quarter it comes in the mail: the dreaded and terrifying, triggering and retraumatizing Home Energy Report from National Grid.  It compares our energy usage to that of Efficient Neighbors and Average Neighbors. It is never pretty.  There are three possible grades:  Great, represented by a big smiling face; good, represented by a small smiling face; and the dreaded \u201cUsing more than average,\u201d which is represented by a sad, frowning face.

Shira and I try. We really do.  But every quarter, we get the sad, frowning face.  Not only do we use more energy than Efficient Neighbors, we use more energy than Average Neighbors.

That is every quarter since forever.  It came then as a total shocker when, in the most recent report, for the first time ever, we did better--much better--than even our most Efficient Neighbors.  We got a big, smiling yellow face with the notation that we used \u201c42% less gas\u201d than efficient neighbors.

I was so proud, I could not wait to bring this National Grid report to share it with you.

There is only one problem.  I took one more look at this happy National Grid report and noticed that it covered a period during the heart of the summer when we were not living at home; we were living in the Berkshires on an extended Air B and B.    We did not use less energy. We used no energy, which is why our report was so good.

In other words, there was a lovely report, but there was a catch that undoes the lovely report.  Beware of the catch that undoes.