What water?

We moved into our house in August 2004.
Getting all the utilities turned on was, for the most part, very easy. My father in law works for the electric company, so that was a snap! Cable, phone and internet access all got right in line nicely.
The propane situation was something oft-discussed here during the summer of 2005, and so I will sum it up now with just one word. Clusterfuck.
It's much better now.

Everything was up and running, except the water!
When we FINALLY figured out what the name of the water company that serviced our neighborhood was...which took a LOT of doing mind you...it was then another nightmare to get a phone number.
During that initial conversation the fellow on the line told us, "If you have a water key, just go ahead and turn the water on yourself."
Oh great! What EXACTLY are we paying YOU for?
But I digress.

We got a few water bills, paid them, but then suddenly in the Summer of '05 (a terrible summer by the way) they just stopped coming.
Since we didn't have a phone number for the company and it was located in Tempe (about 200 miles away) we figured, well, eventually they'll discover that they've forgotten to bill us and we'll get a bill then.

Weeks pass, months pass, years (yes years) pass...
Early summer 2007 an old fellow showed up at our door from the water company confirming our billing address. It's the same as the service address dude.
I told him then "Yeah! We're finally going to get a water bill!"
Weeks pass, months pass...

Early last week we FINALLY get a water bill. It shows our last payment as July of 2005. Sounds about right to me.
Total that we owe just shy of $500. YIKES!
The bill is marked as created on March 10, postmarked March 17 and shows we owe the total amount on March 26. Yes, that's tomorrow.

Just about 10 minutes ago, a different old feller (he was a feller, trust me) from the water company shows up knocking on the window. The WINDOW??!? There's a door RIGHT THERE dude.
Whatever. Old feller.
He says, I'm out here to shut off your water.
Huh?
First of all, we're due TOMORROW!
Second of all, we haven't gotten a bill from your stank company in almost THREE YEARS! Now all of a sudden you have to flip off the water since you mailed a bill out last week. GIVE ME A FRIGGIN BREAK!

I called the number on the bill (yes! A phone number!) and talked to the guy, telling him, no bills and no address to send money to and no phone number of the water company anywhere known to man equals WE CAN'T PAY YOU! So thanks for the bill and we'll work on it, but noone is shutting off MY water today. Sorry dude.

Because I get the feeling that they are generally pretty damn disorganized, and there's just this ONE guy working there, he agreed pretty quickly to call off the water lockdown if we make payments on the water bill.
FINE! Great! Grand!

This whole thing is so ridiculous, it would be comical, if it wasn't MY actual life continuing to be messed with every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year, and so on and so on and so on....