Dear Mr Power Co.,

Thank you for our quarterly electricity bill of $841.25. There are two of us and we mostly use gas. Naturally, I did a house search looking for any illegal marijuana crops in a spare bedroom. Those artificial lights chew up the power. No luck there, sadly, just when I needed the crop to pay the bill. Here's how I plan to pay the $841.25 power bill.

Plan 1. Buy a power company. Yeah! I've gotta get myself a power company. Electricity prices have gone up 60 per cent in 3 years. It's not just the killer-kilowatt hours that push up the profits. The power companies are raking in 21 per cent profit on gold-plating the power grid with fancy poles, frilly lines and swanky substations. This is the dodgiest green program of all. Push down power use through record profits for power companies. I want in. I just need to extend my Visa credit limit by a few billion dollars.

Plan 2: Get a job with a power company. Jobs with power companies are, like, so easy to get. Since 2006, the number of employees you and your mates have on your books, Mr Power Co., has risen from 35,000 to 71,000. Woweeee!!! You just turn up and they give you a job with 26 per cent of your wage paid into your super by the company. I could be a linewoman. I can sing 'Wichita Lineman is still on the li-iiii-ine'. I'd earn my $841.25 in, say, 5 minutes.

Plan 3: Steal copper line. With my linewoman skills, I could shimmy up a pole out back somewhere and cut the line. How many kilometres of copper line equals $841.25? Just let me know.

Plan 4: Sell smart-arse meters. OK. I'm going into competition. You want smart meters? They're monsters. You can charge any rate you want any time and cut us off remotely. No more major blackouts. You can spread it round. Well, you can shove your kW/hrs up your anal network. The Smart Arse meter will tell you when off-peak charges apply. So consumers can really save money.

Plan 5: Litigate. You said, Mr Power Co., if I joined your little outfit I'd save heaps. Five per cent, as I recall. So how much did I save on the $841.25? Um, $11.43. That is 1.3 per cent. I'll get a joint action going. You're goin' down, matey.

Plan 6: Stop using electricity. It can be done. We'll use candles, take cold showers, drink cold tea and coffee and eat cold, oven fried chips. For heat in winter, I'll stoke up the old wood fire using all the bullshit marketing leaflets you send me.

Plan 7: Buy offshore power. I haven't totally worked this one out. But I figure if I can run an extension cord to New Zealand, I'll be laughing. I might even sell you some power. Some real competition. That'd be nice.

Plan 8: Emigrate. I'm off to France. They never sold off their power supplies. The Électricité de France (EDF) not only owns the French system, it is one of the top six owners of UK power supplies. So heaps of profit being squeezed out of UK power consumers goes to the French government. In Australia, lots of profit goes to Singapore. Great!

Plan 9: Don't pay the bill. The idea is that you, Mr Power Co., will have to come to our place and take your pound of flesh. Remember, once, when it was fair profit for fair service? That's gone to hell in a handbasket.

Plan 10: Take out a contract on you, Mr Power Co. There will be a tipping point when it will be cheaper to hire a hit man than pay the bill. Think about that, you bastard.

Yours angrily,

Account number <9000600006500523>