About two-thirds of the way through my writing of an upcoming review last night, the power suddenly went off. Then it came back on. Then off. On again, briefly. Then darkness.
I hadn't saved my work.
Suburban blackouts can be odd and frustrating. You see lights on on the other side of the street, but your own block is dead. Using my cell phone as a makeshift flashlight, I walked outside.
You know how 7-11 and Norm's say they never close? That's not entirely true. 7-11 still had lights, at least, but doors were locked. Inside Norm's, I could see people still eating in utter darkness.
Walking around the block to investigate, I was followed by a red pickup truck driving at walking-speed. I stopped suddenly. He (or she) continued to the end of the block, then made a U-turn coming back towards me. Stopped right next to me, but no window was rolled down, nothing. I walked away quickly and ducked into an alley.
There isn't much to do when all power is gone, except wonder at the silence in this usually loud neighborhood. Finally, wondering if anyone was ever going to do anything, I called the power company.
It turns out some dumbass drove a car into a telephone pole. Freakin' St. Paddy's Day. At 1:50 a.m. 7-11's doors were once again opened, so I bought some beer. I couldn't sleep, and had to wait up anyway to finish that review. With no other source of entertainment, drinking sounded like semi-fun.
The lights came back on midway through beer number two. Lord bless Microsoft for the document retrieval feature.
