Let there be light Without warning, 7:15

Let there be light
Without warning, 7:15 p.m., Monday, Aug. 8, was the day the music died. And everything else electronic. We suffered a blackout.
What the heck? Was this an isolated incident to drive me insane or was this blackout community wide?
Outside, our neighbors wandered about, wondering what had stopped their lives in their tracks too. A car pulled up, with friends reporting that all of Route One, from Lewes to Rehoboth was blacked out, traffic running amok, cars playing chicken at darkened signals, horns honking and people cursing.
As the sun quickly set in the West, I panicked. My daily to-do list stood incomplete as Bonnie and I sat quietly in the living room, no hum from the fridge, no TV, no computer, no A/C, dishwasher and laundry mid-cycle, and of course, damn cell phone battery waning. I thought of Simon & Garfunkle. The Sounds of Silence. I didn’t like it one bit.
Well, at first, it was a relaxing little break. Sitting, talking, laughing, enforced tranquility. I never realized the dog snored that loudly. But then it started getting really, really dark in the house, increasingly warm, a bit spooky and on my very last nerve.
Channeling Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark, I rose from my chair, and feeling the walls along with way, went to the bedroom closet to find the battery operated light/radio. Emergency preparedness error: don’t stash the emergency device in the darkest, most inaccessible dungeon in the house.
Borrowing the Braille method to search for the apparatus, I rummaged through purses last used in 1987, discarded brassieres and a surprising number of errant golf balls plopping off the shelf (ow, ow, ow). Of course, once located, the radio was without batteries. So I used the hand crank, swiveling my rotator cuff to kingdom come to produce five minutes of radio reception. And it was only WGMD. I’d rather be in a news blackout.
Meanwhile, Bonnie felt her way to the kitchen, found matches and lit a candle. It had an aroma like a Creamsicle ice cream pop. Pretty soon the house was hotter, only a flicker lighter and smelled like a Good Humor truck had exploded.
Naturally, I started to get the DTs from electronics withdrawal. Couldn’t check e-mail or Facebook. Couldn’t use my dying smart phone, couldn’t write my column, couldn’t watch The Closer (auuggghhhh!), couldn’t do a damn thing but obsess over what I couldn’t do. It was not my finest hour.
“We could play cards by candle light”, Bonnie said.
“You mean cards in your hand, not on the computer?”
“Or, we could go inside and um, nap.”
“Are you kidding? It’s 96 degrees in here.”
“Okay, well just sit there then.”
So I did, wondering what my Facebook friends were saying, curious if I had e-mail, writing my column in my head. I got pen and paper and scribbled without being able to see, most likely scrawling six sentences atop each other, creating indecipherable hieroglyphics.
Proceeding to the powder room, I tripped over a Schnauzer. Then the Schnauzer tripped over another Schnauzer and a fight ensued. I won. Finally, I pawed my way to kitchen for the phone book (remember those?). Between my senior eyesight and the Creamsicle glow I felt like Mary Todd Lincoln proofing the Gettysburg Address.
So I staggered to the antique hard-wired phone and found a dial tone – no lighted dial, mind you, but at least a dial tone. I thought I knew where the numbers were, but first called an exterminator, then an asphalt company, Finally, I rang up Delmarva Power.
“We estimate service to be restored by 11 p.m. We are evaluating the outage in your area.”
Evaluating? If they’re still evaluating, how do they know when the lights will come on? And what are they evaluating? How long it takes to remove a tractor trailer from a light pole? If Glenn Campbell is still a lineman for the county? How many lesbians it takes to change a light bulb?
My mind wandered. How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb? One to change the light, two to make organic, free range…

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