Power Outages
I had a blackout last night. Luckily, the silence in my room when my fan stopped running woke me up, or I might have slept until God knows when. I set a battery-powered alarm clock and was fine, though the power was still out when I woke up.
When we were having all those wind storms (last week?), we had a blackout at work. It was over lunch, and it was kind of fun. I always like blackouts at the Arvada Center because a lot of the time it meant we got to go home early. What is not fun, however, is waking up at 6:00 on a January morning with no functioning heat (thank God for gas fireplaces!) and the knowledge that somehow you have to get ready for work without power.
Shower? I wonder if I can take a flashlight in there with me (candles won’t work)? Maybe if I wrap it in plastic wrap? Hair? Do I wash it or not? If I don’t, I won’t feel clean all day and it’ll be really gross by the time I get home. If I do, I’ll have to go outside with wet hair because I can’t dry it. Crap. I’ve lost fifteen minutes of my tightly scheduled morning calling the phone company, finding flashlights, and lighting candles. And what if my water heater is electric? I’ll have to forget the whole shower idea…
And the lights came on. Then they went off again. Then back on. And I rearranged my morning so not only was I not late, I was a little early. Everything’s okay. Nevertheless, blackouts: fun at work, sucky at home in the morning in winter on weekdays.