He went back to bed after
he determined The Little Devil wasn't out there and I went back to catching up on some
DVRed shows. Right at 3:00 , the TV went off. As did all other lights in our house (i.e. clocks,
stovetop light, etc.). I went into our bedroom to see if MSH was still awake.
He was looking at his phone. He hadn’t realized we’d lost
power. As y’all may know, we can see for thirty miles—from the top of our hill.
It was dark in a lot of places out yonder. There were some scattered lights. We
have two neighbors on either side of us. They’re several acres away,
but we can see their outdoor lights and they were both completely dark.
I called the power company. I got this recording (and some horribly atrocious music):
“Your call is important to
us and will be answered in the order it was received. Please do not hang up.”
My call was so important I
was on the verge of hitting the "End" button on my cell after 27 minutes of holding. Lucky for moi, a "Dispatch" person picked up. When I told her where we lived and that we'd lost all power, she said there had been a major outage—mostly north of us—and that crews were being
sent to fix it.
An hour and a halfish later, MSH and I decided to drive to town for coffee
and to fill our Jeep up with gas. It would give us a chance to see how widespread
the outage was. (Can I end a sentence that way? Sorry if that's not grammatically correct. And, yes, I'm basically nosy.) The
outage was also south of us. It was strangely random. One side of the highway
had power. The other—not so much. We did see two crews up in those “baskets”
working on the lines. By the time we got home, our
electricity had come back on. It was out for almost two hours.
In the fourteen years
we’ve lived in the country, we’ve lost power probably thirty times.
It’s been off anywhere from a minute or two to several hours. It reminds
us how dependent we are on electricity. (Thank goodness cellphones work! I
think of the many, many, gazillion years none of us had cells and simply had to
sit tight, hoping the Electric Peeps knew we had no juice!)
We have flashlights and
battery-operated lanterns all around our casa and at the Barn apartment—ready
to go. Still, not being able to fix a cup of coffee…worrying about the food in
our fridge and freezer…not being able to shower (we’re all electric!)…not
being able to watch TV? It’s an uncomfortable feeling. Even though MSH and I
honestly believe we should enjoy being forced to sleep, or read, or
think, or rest, or TALK to each other, we must tell the truth: WE DON ’T LIKE IT. Period.
I would never, ever, EVER
have been a good Pioneer Woman.
Thank You, Lord God Almighty—for
electricity! (And the people who can get it back on for us.)
Amen.
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