{I originally wrote this for here, but then posted it on our other blog, but decided to steal it and post it here – where it was originally supposed to be!}
Yesterday afternoon, I was at home sneaking in a quick clean before the weekend. I had just started the vacuum and was making my way across the floor when it slowly died. It made a slow dying noise before coming to a halt in the middle of the floor. I tinkered around with it a few minutes, talked to it, and then realized – maybe it wasn’t the vacuum at all. Maybe just maybe the power had went out?
A quick survey uncovered what I had just assumed. The power, was indeed. Out. This kind of threw a cramp into my day as I had a lot of things I really needed and wanted to get done. Obviously the power going out wasn’t something I had scheduled in. I made the most of the dimming light from the day as I could, and then made my way back down the street to the shop to find out how the rest of the family was faring with the outage.
We tend to…panic. When the power goes out. It doesn’t go out that often, but just enough to make us (well, atleast Amanda and I) vow to never live without a few important things again. Mainly we wonder how to get a battery powered wireless router, and a generator to make coffee.
A few years ago, the power went out for about two days. It would come on for about an hour, then go out again. It did a number on our minds, and now every time the power goes out (for any period of time) we tend to fear the worst. Also we have heard the tragic tales of people actually going for WEEKS without power, and that just about does us in for good. Amanda popped the question last night: Do you think that if the power went out for good that we would survive?
We all thought about it a few minutes, then carefully placed ourselves in the category of people making it 24-48 hours.
When I arrived at the shop, the doors were closed and the lights off. It appeared like we were shut, which was enough to panic me. I hate when the shop appears to be closed. But that’s another rant for another day. I flung the door open with gusto and marched into the office – where everyone sat. Crowed together. All muttering things and fluttering around doing various activities.
I immediately sprung into action and started doing my own random activities. I flung the window open, and poured the last of the coffee into my cup and then sat down to survey. Mom and dad were handing papers back and forth discussing jobs. Amanda was…missing in action. David was talking about closing the window to save heat and Mr Jd was running around enjoying the attention of all electronics being off and all attention turned on him.
I ran to find Amanda, who was in the closet with the only flashlight muttering something about candles, making candle dishes out of paper cups, and lighting them. Downstairs David gave talk of lighting the candles with a blow torch because we have no matches in the office, picturing the office going up in flames I jumped up and decided it was too small of a place to be. I headed home.
Not 20 minutes later, the light from outside was completely gone. It was now dark. But I heard the sound of the car pull into the driveway, and before the doors swung open I heard the unmistakable noise of the family. The door flung open and Amanda jumped out. I raced to meet her. “Were going to town!” she said, a bit more frantic.
Not having anything else to do, I jumped in the car with them and off to town we drove. Various conversations were all going at once. “Why don’t you have matches!” “We need matches” “POP TARTS!” I should stop now and say that mom and dad were fairly level headed about the whole thing – and I would have been too…had David and Amanda not been so frantic. But when one screams, we all scream – even if you don’t know what you are screaming about.
As we drove to town we noticed a pattern – it seemed that just about every house had a single candle in their windows. As if they were doing an SOS of sorts. “Help!” they seemed to be saying “We have no power either!” Either that or they had the same idea we had – pull all your candles out and line the windows with them. Just in case.
Just then we saw a light flicker on. We all cheered. LIGHTS! When we arrived at the store, the parking lot was overflowing. Much like moths and light – ½ the town had decided that the end of the world HAD arrived, and the grocery store was the main attraction. Not wanting to be left out, we barreled out of the car and raced into the store. The power had, apparently, just come back on in there as well.
We pushed our way through the crowds – a man stood with his shopping cart loaded with end of the world styled food, and sheepishly looked over the aisle at another customer. Both looked as though they had been caught in the middle of a crime.
Meanwhile we pushed through. And bought the needed items. Day old donuts. Of course. And matches.
Donuts because we felt weird buying just matches. And because David was hungry. And because what else do you do in the event of a power outage?
Once we got back into the car, and had a few minutes to regain our bearings – we all gave thought to the items we needed, once again, in the event of a power outage. Battery backups for our computers. Matches. And then Amanda dropped the final bit on us all: “What we really need.” She said, full of confidence. “Is one of those things you can cook pizzas on the wood stove.”
Because when the power goes out the first thing one must always do is cook a pizza. On the wood stove.
What weird things do you do in the event of a power outage?
*Disclaimer – none of the pictures above are ours – we were too busy panicking to take pictures*
This is too funny. I tend to panic too when the power goes out. We’re on a well, so no power means no water, and that always seems like the worst part to me. A few years ago, we had a terrible wind storm and the power was out for two days. I only lasted two hours before packing up and heading to my moms house (which still had power). I’m a wimp. 🙂
No water is definitely bad! I always assume the water is out here when the power is out too…but now that I think about it, I think its just the hot water. Two days without power or water would be horrible!