The gas meter was on the wall in the kitchen next to the stove. A tin box with two dials and a pipe coming out of the floor. The gas meter smelled like gas. Not a leak. The smell of the meter itself. Metal and whatever the gas company put in the gas so you could smell it before it killed you. The safety smell. The warning built into the product.

The gas meter had two dials that turned in opposite directions. You read one clockwise and one counterclockwise and the difference was your bill. Nobody understood the dials. The meter man understood the dials. He came every two months and read them with a glance and wrote the number on a card and left the card on the kitchen table. The card was the bill. The bill was the conversation between you and the invisible.

My mother was afraid of the gas meter. Not the meter. The gas. She checked the stove knobs before bed. Every night. All four knobs. She turned each one and felt it click into the off position and then she checked them again. The gas was the only utility that could kill you while you slept. The electricity could shock you. The water could flood you. But the gas could fill a room and wait. The gas was patient. The meter counted the patience.

The pilot light was the meter's partner. The little blue flame on the stove that never went out. The pilot light burned gas twenty-four hours a day seven days a week and the meter counted every hour. The pilot light was the most expensive nightlight in the apartment. But without the pilot light you needed a match every time you cooked. The pilot light was convenience measured in cubic feet.

They put in electronic ignition. No pilot light. The stove clicks and sparks and the gas ignites and the meter only turns when you are cooking. The electronic ignition saves gas. The electronic ignition saves money. But the kitchen is darker now. The pilot light was a small blue presence in the room that said the stove is ready. The kitchen was never completely dark. Now it is.

See also: Fuse Box, Gaslight