"Ductless mini-splits, not central," I said. "But yes. That's what I'm telling you."
She shook her head with a little smile, the smile of a person who's heard every excuse. "Ms. Sundquist. I've been doing this for nine years. I've had a man tell me his boat wasn't a boat because it didn't have a motor in it. I've had a woman tell me her six cats were all visiting from out of town. Nobody lives without a meter. And when the only house in this neighborhood with no meter is also the only house that had lights during a blackout, I don't need a degree in engineering to put that together."
"You don't need a degree," I said. "But it might help to walk around to the back of the house and look up."
"I've seen your solar panels. Half the houses on Primrose have solar panels. The Bensons have solar panels and they were in the dark like everybody else."
"Because the Bensons are grid-tied," I said. "Their inverters shut off when the grid goes down. That's required. Mine aren't connected to the grid at all, so there's nothing to shut off for. I have sixty kilowatt-hours of batteries in my utility room. That's why my lights were on. I'd be glad to show you. Right now. It'll take ten minutes."
"I'm not going into your house," she said sharply.
"Then I'll bring the logs out here." I tried to keep my voice level. "Glenda. My mower is a fifty-six-volt battery zero-turn. The charger draws about eleven hundred watts from a regular outlet. A full charge from dead is about three kilowatt-hours. If I plugged it into the clubhouse every single day, which I don't, I'd be costing the Association maybe thirty-five cents a day. Your bill went up by seventeen hundred dollars a month. You'd need fifteen of my mowers charging around the clock, every hour of every day, to do that."
She looked at me for a moment. Something flickered behind her reading glasses. Then it was gone.
"I'm not here to debate electrical theory," she said. "I'm here to offer you a resolution. Pay the restitution and fees, sign an acknowledgment that you won't connect to Association power in the future, and the Board will return your property and waive the outstanding fines. That's a generous offer."
"I'm not going to sign something saying I stole electricity I didn't steal."
"Then we'll take it up at a special meeting of the Board. Next Thursday, at the clubhouse, seven p.m. You'll have an opportunity to present whatever you'd like." She stood up and tucked the folder under her arm. "But I'd think carefully, Ms. Sundquist. If you won't resolve this privately, the Board may have no choice but to refer the matter to the co-op as theft of service. And I'm sure someone with your background understands how seriously they take that."
She'd done her homework. She knew which button to push. For a second, I felt something hot come up the back of my neck.