Mary Horomanski went online earlier this month to check her electric bill.
本月初，玛丽.霍诺曼斯基上网查询她的电费账单。
The Erie, Pennsylvania, woman was stunned to see she owed Penelec, her electricity provider, more than $284 billion — an amount greater than the national debts of Hungary and South Africa combined.
这位住在美国宾夕法尼亚州伊利市的女士惊讶地发现：她竟然欠电力供应商“Penelec”2840多亿美元——竟然比匈牙利和南非的国家债务总和还要多。
"My eyes just about popped out of my head," said Horomanski, 58. "We had put up Christmas lights and I wondered if we had put them up wrong."
58岁的霍诺曼斯基说，“我的眼珠子几乎快要蹦出来了，” “为了看得更清楚一点，我们把圣诞灯都点上了，我还寻思是不是自己填错了。”
The good news, if you can call it that, was that Horomanski didn’t have to pay the entire $284,460,000,000 until November 2018. Her minimum payment for December was a relatively paltry $28,156.
不过，好消息是——如果你愿意称其为好消息的话——在2018年11月前，霍诺曼斯基无需全部支付2844.6亿美元的电费，她可以选择分期付款，本月的最低支付额度相对来说不多，仅为28156美元（约合18.4万元人民币）。
And Penelec hadn’t turned off her electricity.
Penelec公司也没有切断霍诺曼斯基家的供电。
Horomanski texted her son, who contacted Penelec and told them about the bill. She said they confirmed it was in error.
霍诺曼斯基发信息给她的儿子，儿子联系了Penelec公司说了帐单的事。最后，她说电力公司确认是账单弄错了。
Her online statement was quickly fixed to the correct amount: $284.46.
她的电费金额也很快被更正为284.46美元（约合1800元人民币）。
Mark Durbin, a spokesman for Penelec’s parent company First Energy, said he doesn’t know how the error occurred but obviously a decimal point was accidentally moved.
Penelec公司的母公司“第一能源”发言人马克.德宾说，他不清楚这个错误是如何发生的，但显然是小数点点错了。
"I can’t recall ever seeing a bill for billions of dollars," Durbin said. "We appreciate the customer’s willingness to reach out to us about the mistake."
他表示，“印象中，我从来没见过上了十亿的电费账单，很感谢客户发现错误后能够跟我们沟通”。
Horomanski said the $284 billion bill caused her to ask her son for a different Christmas present this year.
霍诺曼斯基说，这张2840亿美元的帐单使得她今年找儿子要了一份非比寻常的圣诞礼物。
"I told him I want a heart monitor," she said.
她说，“我让他给我买一台心脏监护仪。”
