Humorous on face value, but that's not what utility companies do. In every utility district I ever lived (and it's a lot), if the meter readers were "unable" to read your meter, the consumption was estimated.

I had many conflicts about this because I traveled a lot for work and knew that there was no possible way I could have consumed as much electricity as they estimated. It turned it that meter readers could just claim the meter was inaccessible, and their job was considered completed.