It’s that time of year again in Texas when weather causes power outages. Not the normal kind, where there’s a storm and lightning damages something, no the kind where it’s over 100 degrees for several days in a row (and only drops down to the 90s at night) so everybody cranks the AC to keep it in the 70s, and the overburdened powerlines, combined with the external temperatures they’re exposed to, melt the older fuses. And then electricity starts failing all over the city. Usually the electric company gets these little outages fixed fast, but yesterday there was a pileup and my block was without from about 7:00-11:15 at night.
What do you do when there’s no electricity? It’s funny how much of our lives revolve around in. In the heat around here, the house starts to get uncomfortable within the hour (poor cats with their fur coats!), and you can’t open the refrigerator for fear of all your food spoiling. Our phone is digital, so no electricity = no modem = no phone. And of course, with our genius organizational skills, Scott’s cell isn’t charged and I can’t find mine, so we’re out of luck there. (You can still have the old school horror movie that could be solved with a cell phone… if I’m your heroine).
Scott was, of course, pissed (Lord love him, but the inconveniences of life get to my spouse), and I lit a candle, and he was certain I was going to burn the house down, so that didn’t calm him any. We snarked, and then we tried to be nice (heh) and then we agreed to go for queso and margaritas, somewhere with an AC unit. That calmed both of us down, but when we got back, still no dice. The neighborhood was gathering on the street, so we got to meet people I’ve never introduced myself to before, and that was cool. Funny how a lack of technology makes people both meaner and friendlier.
Eventually, we drove downtown to check out BookPeople (Scott’s suggestion; I think he was trying to make me happy by suggesting books), and I found the invasion of teenage zombie books that somebody, about a year ago, predicted would be arriving. A couple of them looked good, but it raises my hackles that nobody uses a zombie right. Zombies are a voodoo thing, people. They are risen by bokurs (voodoo witches that don’t play by the “good” rules) to do the will of the caller, not to eat brains. And they certainly can’t think for themselves. Thoughtful corpses are revenants. NOT zombies. I understand that a protagonist who can’t think for themselves makes a crappy lead character, so either come up with some reason that the zombie can think for itself (what I do in my zombie novel that I’m writing – in which a zombie is called by a bokur and then something weird happens) OR don’t call it a zombie. I’m just saying.
Anyway, then we went to Cheapos to check out if they had anything cool (did, but we’re feeling po so we didn’t buy anything), came home and… the electricity was still off. So we went to sleep in the heat, with no fan. Uncool. Literally. But woke up to a delightfully working house, so the routine is coming slowly back to normal.
I actually don’t mind the electricity going off. It makes me feel like an adventurer, and sure makes me appreciate both what electricity allows me to do… and also that I can be a complete person without it. So, occasionally, let there be no light. But next time, make it not during a heat wave.
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