Electricity

 

6:15AM that was when the power went out. I was listening to the morning news and heard the transformer blow. I got up to see what the time was and if there was any fire. The sound of the transformer short is familiar. Louder than a firecracker like a distant wreck. I check the house and notice the people across the street still have their Christmas lights on mocking us who have lost electricity. I checked the time and climbed back into bed.

Without electricity, life stops. Everything runs on electricity. Electricity is our lifeblood. The lights need electricity. Preparing food needs electricity. Entertainment requires electricity. Communication runs on electricity.

So, no electricity?

No problem.

My mother and father grew up with electricity. Their parents did not have the wires to power the television. Oh yeah, there was no television or radio then either. Like the telephone, there were few people who had access to electrical power. Little by little wooden poles were put up and wires strung and they threw the switch and the lights came on and the candles were put away. The power was weak and there were few appliances to use electricity, but it would catch on.

Now every house is expected to have electricity. Every room has a switch to turn on the overhead lighting. Every wall has reciprocals to plug in everything that makes life exciting.

That big screen entertainment center needs electricity. The multiple computers need electricity. The refrigerator and microwave need electricity.

Sure there are hand held devices that run off of batteries, but the battery needs to be recharged with electricity. Even your car needs electricity. That battery that turns over the motor to get a car to move can run out of juice and as many times as you kick the tires or slam the hood, the battery needs to have electricity to work.

A rock band without electricity is only a drummer. A night baseball game is merely shadows without electricity. Going to a movie theater is just sitting in a dark room without electricity.

But not everything needs electricity.

A pencil does not need electricity. A broom does not need electricity. Books don’t need electricity. Washing doesn’t need electricity. Sex doesn’t need electricity. Sleeping doesn’t need electricity. Walking doesn’t need electricity. Most musical instruments don’t need electricity. Talking doesn’t need electricity. Smoking doesn’t need electricity. Drinking doesn’t need electricity. Laughing doesn’t need electricity. You can have a party alone without electricity.

A power truck drives by and you can hear the trumpets sound. Help is on the way. The cavalry has arrived.

Don’t know what they pay these guys (and they are mostly guys, ladies?) but here are folks who get in a bucket, rise up two stories wearing a rubber coat and a plastic hat in the rain, snow, ice, wind, cold and utterly miserable weather that most of us avoid, then play with wires that carry enough electricity to not only fry the egg, but the whole chicken, roost and probably the barn. They keep the electricity running and are not enough appreciated. When they show up the neighbors come out and complain about how they are missing their soap operas, can’t stream their movies or blame them because their medical devices won’t work for their elderly parents. Even the dogs bark at them. They do their work and quietly leave.  

I have a gas furnace, but the blower runs on electricity so I’ll just stay under the covers. It is spooky quiet except for my neighbor running his generator and my other neighbor playing Lumberjack Jim cutting down the icy broken bushes and limbs.

Waiting in the silent darkness, one thinks.

12:26PM, the power comes back on.

It is safe to breathe again.

The computers come back on, but no Internet. The little light in the refrigerator comes back on so I can eat a salad (which does not require electricity). The radios need to be turned to the channel and the clocks on the stove and microwave need to be reset but this place is now reconnected to electricity.  

I can write down my thoughts but cannot communicate them with anyone else.

I don’t use my flip phone to keep connected to the world, but realize I go from room to room looking at different screens, logging on the same sites, watching movies, listening to music, reading the news, checking the weather and commenting on others post of children and dogs in the snow. I realize I spend too much time waiting for something to happen while I stare at the screen.

I also realize how much I use spell check and Wikipedia and the immediacy of wasting time searching for some word or meaning that would have taken hours in a library doing cross references while Google just points me the way in seconds.

Could I do without this?

I’ve gone without television for a couple of years and do not miss it. Even football (the only sport I followed but never rooted for) had become more about the commercials and talking heads than athletic skill and strategic planning. News shows became entertainment sketches; cooking shows used repetitive ingredients and even fine directing and acting on PBS series lost interest. Any cultural interest could be seen on YouTube for free.

Television explosions and car crashes were distracting when radio could give me the latest news and intelligent opinion pieces while I could do something else with my eyes.

So do I pull the plug on the Internet?

In the beginning (yes, I’m that old) to contact anyone connected to the World Wide Web required a phone line and a modem. Supplying some archaic code to log on, there was a green screen with yellow text. It was a sort of very slow chat room.

With the increase in hardware speed, broadband and social media, the Internet became the ‘must have’ we use today. We must have our Internet before we have our coffee (which does require electricity). Waking up we search to see if someone, somewhere had sent a message or a gif or had someone commented on a post made the day before.

The Internet is also a big cocktail party to see who likes you and whom you like. In the past couple of years the politics brought down many facades and long time relationships were broken. It is also full of advertising and enticements to places unknown. The Interest is the best video game invented so far.  It has been an interesting psychological study, but maybe it is time to move on? What you got next?

I’ll probably go back to it just for the research capabilities, but I think I’ll wait a week before I call (if I can find a phone number without a Google search). I also will need the connection to check my banking account, order from Amazon, post my blogs and find artwork.

Cold turkey withdrawal?

The lights are on, the ice is melting, the heat is back, the wine is chilled and spring is on the way. How long can I go without?

2/23/2021