Wake me up next spring

Fall sucks. I'm officially declaring my intention to hibernate until spring, mentally, anyway, if not physically. Oh, I'll show up for my commitments because I'm a good soldier, but malcontentedness will mow down any little shred of enthusiasm that might linger from summer. No worries, I'll still get stuff done, but life will occur in short desperate bursts, between naps. For example, I'll still flog my body to the store for vittles, but I anticipate brain fog will follow me like the dirt cloud followed Pigpen. Be warned, if you ask me a question, I can't promise a snappy response.

The night before last, the power went out while I was dozing to late night TV. I woke to darkness. I fumbled for my fake camping lantern (a lime green plastic gizmo with an LED light) and managed to brush my teeth and fall into bed without stabbing myself with the toothbrush or stubbing my toe. I peered out my window and realized I haven't seen natural darkness in a long time. The neighborhood was dark, no street lights, no lamps glowing in curtained windows, just invisible pouring rain and the dim outline of my landlord's real estate office against a slightly lighter sky. Dark, is what I'm saying.

I didn't mind sleeping in darkness: I curse my radioactively bright blue alarm clock nightly. It was refreshing to not have a street light muscling through my drapes. I opened my window and listened to the rain and pretended I was camping (even though I hate camping). But I knew if the power was still off in the morning, that I might have some issues. And sure enough, when I woke up to a wet gray morning, no power. Which, of course, meant no coffee, no breakfast, no microwave, no music, no internet... no heat. Ahhhhhhhh!

I dug around in the dust for my authentic lavender-colored Trimline analog phone and dialed the automated response line for the power company. We are aware of a power outage in your area. We have received a total of nine. hundred. and. seventy. eight phone calls and two. thousand. forty. six households are currently without power. We estimate the power will be restored at eleven. o. clock. We don't know what caused the power outage. If you have any information that might help, please stay on the line. I quickly hung up, lest they think I had something to offer, thinking if the power company doesn't know what caused the power outage, then there's little hope for humankind.

I tried to go back to bed, but the cat was having none of that. Slacker! My plants seemed to lean accusingly at me when I stumbled into the kitchen: Where's our growlight, slacker? I looked at my coffee pot. I looked at my computer. I looked all around my dim cave of an apartment, missing all the little green lights that usual glow on various devices, proof that I'm safe in the loving arms of the higher power, the electrical grid of my city. I stood there, wondering if I should light some candles and hoping my neighbors wouldn't. Suddenly it occurred to me, ah-ha! Maybe there is some yesterday's coffee left in the coffee carafe. I scampered into the kitchen. Darn, hardly a mouthful. One swig of day-old cold coffee wasn't enough to stave off the fear of caffeine withdrawals.

At 10 o'clock I dialed my mother, thinking, surely she's up by now. Maybe she'll feel like going out to breakfast. She answered the phone groggily, her cigarette-voice gruff.

“Hey Mom, is your power out?” I demanded.

Long pause. I could practically hear her brain processing my question. “I don't know, let me check,” she replied. A moment later she returned. “I have power,” she said. I apologized for disturbing her so early, and hung up.

I ate a banana, feeling bereft, looking wistfully at my silent baseboard heater. Was it getting dangerously cold in the tender climate of the Love Shack? I bundled into my fleece bathrobe while my cat gazed at me bemusedly. I flopped down on my couch in my TV-watching position, staring bleakly at the shiny blank screen of my ancient analog-signal TV, willing the power to come back on. When that didn't work, I pulled the cat-hair infested fleece blanket over my legs and decided to meditate until the power was restored.

The meditation session lasted about 30 minutes and left me with a bad case of brain fog and heart burn. I was getting hungrier and crankier by the minute. Should I abandon my apartment, should I go out and drive around until I crossed the magical boundary dividing those who have power from those who have none? At least my car would be warm.

As I sat on my couch, contemplating my next move through the brain fog, suddenly I heard a rumbling sound in the kitchen. The refrigerator motor. Saved by electricity! Praise the gods of the grid. I'm restored to power, if not to sanity.

What did I learn from my bout with powerlessness? That life is precarious, that nothing should be taken for granted, especially not our invisible, silent miracle—electricity. That coffee is especially precious. That I was lucky the outage was confined to one neighborhood and not the entire city. That next time I might not be so lucky.