On The Bright Side

Going without electricity for 23 hours was a bummer. First there was the internet withdrawal. Going to work with wet hair and eye shadow that’s darker on one eye than the other because you applied it by candlelight was a little embarrassing. And let’s not even talk about wearing wrinkled clothes because someone in our household never irons anything until right before she puts it on. It WAS a bummer, but really that’s all it was for the Hula-gen’s. We take that kind of thing in stride. Well, not Teen Angel. I had forgotten until yesterday morning how emotionally debilitating it is for a teenaged girl to properly get ready for school without electricity. I think her words were something like, “Thank goodness it’s pajama day because of Homecoming week.” Really though, it was just an inconvenience. We certainly weren’t holding onto our rooftop amid floodwaters or standing in line for six hours for a Red Cross sandwich and a roll of toilet paper. God bless the people in Texas. If you haven’t seen any of the photos go to the Houston Chronicle, sift through the pictures and then thank the Good Lord for the roof over your head and the Hamburger Helper on your plate.

The outage was more of a distraction than anything. Hubby was preoccupied most of the outage by chasing down AWOL patio furniture and closing on the loan needed to pay the tree trimmer, and I was at work most of the time. Besides, I grew up in the sticks where the power went off every time the wind blew. I learned early on that an old fashioned can opener and the Coleman lantern can be your best friends.

Sunday we locked down the refrigerator and freezer, waited it out patiently and felt thankful that we got electricity back as soon as we did. In fact, upon reflection I think there are several positive aspects of a long power outage. It seems to spur your ingenuity, brings you closer together as a family and forces you to do things you’ve been putting off. Such as:

1. You finally eat that can of chick peas that’s been lingering in the cabinet for eight months.
2. There’s nothing on TV so you don’t fight with your husband over the remote control.
3. It breeds intimacy and family conversation since everyone has to sit around the same oil lamp in order to see anything after 8pm.
4. You get some extra use out of those party votives you’ve been saving from the 4th of July get together.
5. You learn precisely how long the batteries in the flashlights last.
6. You figure out how to make a dessert with a can of sweetened condensed milk, half a box of stale graham cracker crumbs and the grill.
7. Everyone is well rested because you go to bed when the sun goes down.
8. It’s a good time to make a list of disaster kit items because it’s obvious what you DON’T have.
9. Family game night is reinstated because you found a pack of Uno cards while digging for more flashlight batteries. By the way, I understand why there’s a baby boom nine months after this kind of thing. Eventually, you run out of things to do.
10. And most importantly, it forces you to finally, once and for all, clean out the refrigerator.

The outage may have been worth it just for number 10.