Random Power Outage

Last night, while lying in bed, suddenly everything seemed weird. Something was . . . wrong. It took me a few moments to realize what it was. The room was completely dark — pitch black —  and very quiet — eerily still. Our bedside digital clocks were dark, and the white noise machine was silent. The power was out.

It’s amazing how dark the house can get with no electricity powering the little electronic devices we take for granted. Normally it’s pretty easy to get up and walk to and from the bathroom in the night because the clocks or some little red dot on some device serves as markers for where things are. But when everything if off, the dark is complete blackness. Literally can’t see your hand in front of your face.

I got out of bed, and carefully and slowly felt my way to the window to look outside. I parted the curtains and blinds, and saw the glowing streetlight beside the road that runs past our neighborhood. On the other side of that road, I could see lights on in houses in the other neighborhood. Hmm. Is it just our house that’s without power? I slowly and carefully made my way across the bedroom and out to the hall to look out a front window. The streetlight in front of our house was dark, and all the houses down our street were dark. So, it wasn’t just our house. Wonder what caused this? No storm, nothing going on that I could see or hear. Just a random power outage.

When I walked back into the bedroom, Wifegrit was awake. I told her the power was out. She had to get up for work Saturday morning, so she needed an alarm. She opened her iPad. It was 11:35. While she set the iPad’s alarm, I made my way to my office to get my phone. I used it as a flashlight to get back to bed. I forgot that I keep a big Maglite in my nightstand.

While she had her iPad open, she checked Facebook. One of our neighbors had posted about the power outage. Wifegrit confirmed in a comment to that post that it did seem that the whole neighborhood was out. Then she closed the pad,  and we both went back to sleep.

A while later, though, I heard a strange moaning sound. My first thought was that the dog was snoring. So I listened to his breathing — easy to do when the house is otherwise completely silent. The moaning didn’t seem to match the dog’s breathing pattern. Then I realized it was one of our boys making the sound down the hall. I hopped out of bed and went through the blackness, (I forgot the flashlight again), to find that Calfgrit9 was trying to call for attention.

CG9 was spooked by the darkness and silence. His room has a nightlight and a fan, and both were off. I talked to him a minute, to explain that the electricity was out. He was trembling and his voice was cracking. So I got in bed with him and snuggled up with my arm over him. He calmed down after a minute, and we whispered a conversation for another minute or two. He asked what time it was, and I said I didn’t know.

He really wanted to know what time it was, so I left to go get my phone from my bedroom. On my way back to him, the power came back on. In his room again, I showed him the time on my phone, (1:10), and we talked another minute. He said he would be alright now that it wasn’t completely dark and quiet.

Soon I was in my bed asleep again. I dreamed of fighting zombies. Not a scary dream, but actually a fun and exciting adventure. I wonder if the power outage prompted that?

Bullgrit