Let me explain, please, in terms no one will ever possibly understand

After a church dinner last Sunday, a fellow parishioner said he had a topic for my next column. There's nothing I like better than suggestions for columns. Sometimes I run a little dry, and these unexpected offers to help are always welcome.

So, said Charlie, why don't you write a column about the Ameren bill. Maybe, he said, you could find someone who could explain it to us.

Let me say, right off the top, that I fear Charlie is going to be disappointed. After exhaustive research, I discovered by there is no known individual anywhere who can explain an Ameren bill. Not even all those folks who work for Ameren.

I hedged a bit. Maybe you noticed. I said there is "no known individual" who can help us interpret the mystical jargon of a utility bill. There might, however, be some unidentified person who sits at a computer all day and, among other things, designs utility bills. That person, she or he, might be able to help Charlie and me. And you. But I can't find that person. Can you?

To get a full appreciation for Charlie's plight, pull out your latest Ameren bill. Got it? Let's start in the box in the upper left-hand corner of the bill. That looks like a summary of what you might be paying for. There are columns with the headings "Pres Rdg" and "Prev Rdg" and "Use" and "Reading" and "Rate" and, finally, "Amount." See where we are?

My most recent bill says I had a "Reading" of "Actual" with a rate of "1M" for a total of a bunch of money. There you go. Clear as can be. Someone actually read my meter (electricity? gas?) and charged me a 1M rate. Simple calculus. Which I failed. Twice.

Now we're ready for the second line. I used five of something and was charged an RS GS T rate. Apparently I didn't use very much, because this "Amount" is a lot, lot, lot less than the first line.

Next come the Fuel Adjustment Charge, the Infrastructure Replacement Surcharge, the Energy Efficiency Invest Chg, the MO Local Sales Tax, the Cape Gir-Cape Gir Co Muni Chg, the Budget Adjustment and, finally, the Amount Due. Which, again, is a bunch of money.

Having led you through your bill, do you feel like you better understand how Ameren's billing works?

All of these charges -- from Actual 1M to Muni Chg -- come with this warning, by the way: IYDPUWWCYO. That's utility speak for "If you don't pay up, we will cut you off." You probably already knew that.

Charlie, in making his suggestion for this column's topic, opened a Pandora's box. If our Ameren bill were the only bill we had to decipher, we would feel truly blessed. But there's your city utility bill, your phone bill, your insurance EOBs (explanation of benefits) and your supplement insurance EOBs. Once you start down this slippery slope, you soon run into sharp gravel, and we all know that hurts like heck.

My phone bill says I pay extra for Federal Universal Service, and for a MO Universal Service Fund (a whopping 2 cents), and a Municipal Gross Receipts Surcharge, and a Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge, and a Relay Missouri Charge, city, county and state Telecom Tax, and a 911 tax. When I signed up for phone service, did I ask for any of those things? No.

If you ask, the phone company will say these charges are listed on the bill so customers will know about the cost of government regulations and taxes that support desired add-ons like being able to dial three number in an emergency and you really, really, really need help in a hurry.

You know what?

I would prefer the telephone company and the utility company and everyone else trying to pass the buck to raise rates to cover the penny-ante fees and then let the billing company suck up the expense. That's what I would prefer.

I'd also like to thoroughly explain your medical EOBs to you, but we're going to all be dead before I could finish.

Suffice to say that Medicare Summary Notices are using real English words to describe what's being charged. Supplemental insurance folks still rely on number codes, like some secret society. I don't know what that's all about. Plain English goes a long way for most of us.

So, Ameren, phone company, city utility department (water, trash, sewer): Are you ready to hire some interpreters for bills that actually tell customers what they're up against?

And, the eternal question remains: Why does it cost more to get rid of the water that goes down our sewers than it costs to get the water in the first place?

Charlie, did that help at all?

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.