Uhhhh... Say What?

I didn’t notice at the time. I was on my cell talking to a friend, having left the living room to do so without the sound of the TV interfering. Our bedroom is two doors from there, so I didn’t hear anything. Well, except for the siren going off. I haven’t been back here long enough to remember we don’t actually have a 6PM siren in town, so that didn’t register either. There’s enough light this time of year that I hadn’t turned one on in the bedroom either, all circumstances combining to keep me from being aware that the power had gone off.

I found out when I emerged after the call. The TV wasn’t on. Paul was sitting in the living room talking to Steve rather than in his room playing video games. Hmmm, surely AGT  should be on now, right? That’s when I was informed that the lights had flickered and died just seconds before the siren triggered.

We sat around for several minutes discussing how long it might be off. It’s sticky out, and the house AC is very welcome these days.  The fridge and basement freezers are packed full. No fans blow, no internet, no microwave, Steve is stuck in his lift chair … the list started to grow of reasons to begin concern.

I still keep the  phone number for the power company here in my cell directory. I decided to call to see what we could find out about how long we should expect to wait. What I got instead was a very interesting voicemail system. After the usual prompts, I wound up where power outages get reported, and information about them is provided. However, there is a backup, and perhaps I might wish to go to their website to find out what was happening in my area.

Uhhh … Say what?

*     *     *     *

Paul eventually called the local sheriff's department to find out what they knew about the shut-down. Nothing. They referred him to a different number for the power company and they had no clue either, so he wound up reporting the outage. After taking a walk around the neighborhood, he assessed it was at least that area wide. Nobody but us had reported it, apparently. On his phone call we were informed they had just assigned a truck to deal with it. Paul set a candle in the bathroom before we retired to a hot sticky night of trying to sleep.

A loud blast from the smoke detector over our heads woke us around 4 AM. While I slept however fitfully, Steve had managed to work his way out of his lift hair and join me in bed. With AC now working I moved back into the living room, sprawled across the couch with my mobile furry lap warmer, falling deeply asleep enough not to hear Paul get up and leave for work. Now it's time to try to recall just how each clock resets, except the battery one in the kitchen that Paul made for me back in high school. And Steve will get another lesson on how to find the missed episode of AGT on demand.