Power, Power, Everywhere

Last night was a tough night. The power went off again about 8:30 pm or so. Usually our outages are not too long, but last night’s went up to around midnight or so. By some stroke of luck or providence, my daughter stayed asleep for almost all of it. Normally her and my son both wake up soon after the power goes off since the AC and fan in their room stops working.

As time went on I began to get more frustrated. I have my very own Murphy’s Law of sorts. If there were only one mosquito in the whole of the country it would find my feet. When the power goes off there are a lot more than just one mosquito. And most of them were finding me.

Eventually I wandered out on to the balcony to look around and see if any other places had power. To my dismay I realized that it was only our small neighborhood without power. For whatever reason, there were only maybe 100 houses just near us without power. Very frustrating.

We tried to do things to keep our minds off how hot it was getting without the fans going and how many mosquitoes were biting us, etc. My son pulled out a small notebook and began asking us how to spell certain words. He would then write those words in his notebook. That worked for a while.

The best part is when the power finally does come back on, and the fans start moving air again. It is somehow sweeter and more enjoyable than it was just hours before, when you were less aware of the joy or comfort such things were bringing you.

Maybe all we needed was just a reminder to not take such things for granted. But did it have to take almost four hours to learn that lesson?