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8:10 a.m. - 2013-07-14
POWER OUT
The other night I was house sitting for my aunt. She was spending a few days out of town, and was concerned about the safety of her "antiques." Personally, I think she's a borderline hoarder, but it didn't hurt me to stand guard over her houseful of stuff. Besides, her neighborhood is better than mine.

Usually...

A huge thunderstorm came rolling in with the kind of rain that seems to be coming in solid sheets of water.

I was watching something on TV when suddenly the lights flickered and went out, the TV went off, and the carbon monoxide detector made that nails on blackboard shriek that means either the power is going out our you're about to succumb to an invisible odorless gas.

I waited, hoping the power would come back on, but nothing.

There was still some light in the sky, so I took my Kindle out to my aunt's deck and tried to read, but the mosquitoes were out, aggressive and hungry, with all their little proboscises aimed my way.

Back inside, I scrounged around, finally locating candles and matches. Read for a while by candlelight--not all that it's cracked up to be, and now I appreciate Lincoln even more--then found myself nodding off.

Woke up about an hour later. Began to worry that I might oversleep and miss work the next morning without an alarm clock. So I set an alarm on my iPod.

Read a little more until bedtime. Then as I was about to head for the bedroom using my iPod screen as a flashlight, the power came back on.

Aside from the lights, what I missed most was my aunt's central AC.

Funny that things we view as hardship were just the everyday situation for our ancestors. I wonder what they'd think of us today?

 

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