Electricity

Just about to get to work yesterday when I heard the all too familiar BOOM! of a transformer blowing.

Lights out. Poof goes the power.

That’s ok, I think, trying to stay positive —  I still have my laptop battery! But the wireless router plugged into the wall is dead, so I can’t get online, which really makes my laptop next to useless in my opinion.

That’s ok, I soldier on, bravely — I’ll exercise!  Then I realize – I can’t. The Wii won’t work without electricity. The recumbent bike won’t give me resistance without being plugged in. I can’t even go for a walk outside thanks to the 30 mile an hour wind and rain that blew out the damn transformer in the first place. What am I supposed to do? Run in place withouta little Wii person leading me around a little Wii track?   I would look RIDICULOUS!

Those poor people in the 1700’s must have been SO out of shape.

And every time the electricity goes out, I have a few seconds where I think to myself: Well, I can’t watch television, but at least I can watch a DVD or Tivo. Every. Single. Time.

Inevitably, I end up doing some house cleaning – in dim light, which drives me crazy. (Actually, in the past my mother has accused me of alwaysdoing my house cleaning by dim light, now that I think about it.) Opening the shutters to let in the sun doesn’t help much.

Why does the electricity always go out on overcast days?

The whole day goes by and no electricity. When the sun goes down we start feeling like pioneers, sitting outside, trying to enjoy our last few minutes of light. Soon afterwards we’re sitting in the living room playing cards by flashlight.

That’s right. I saidCARDS.

We’ve been reduced to animals.

Slowly, the bulb in our only decent flashlight starts to go, like one of those horror movies where there is one little light keeping the vampires at bay and it is getting dimmer and dimmer…

We light candles all over the place, knowing full well people who drink as much wine as we do should not light candles all over the place.

Our beloved dog, Gordon, is looking at us like we’re nuts. Switches on the wall, people. He’s saying. I’m too short to reach them and I’ve got these awkward paw thingies instead of hands, but I’ve seen youdo it a million times. Just hit the light switches on the wall!

We finally give up and go to bed, praying the PING! of everything springing back to life wakes us up during the night.

It doesn’t.

Day two of darkness arrives.

I hope we don’t have to eat the dog.