Heaven doth with us as we with torches do; not light them for themselves.

I have become all too familiar with torches this summer… We have been without power since Sunday—courtesy of Hurricane Irene. And the stock answer for when it’s coming back is “By Wednesday.”


I know a lot of other folks up and down the East Coast have it way worse than us—trust me. My folks got wiped out in 1989 by Hurricane Hugo when it stalled over St. Croix Island for 12 hours. And that was a Category 5. Don’t mess with Mother Nature. I have a healthy respect for what she is capable of, believe me. I mean, the East Coast had an earthquake last Wednesday and a hurricane on Saturday and Sunday (that included floods and tornadoes.) Dang.

It wouldn’t be so bad if we hadn’t gone through 2 days of no power back in June. And what makes this more frustrating is that once again, everyone around us has power. The exterior lights from the apartments on the hill above shine down and mock us at night. It’s not fair. We’re nice people, we deserve light.

Unfortunately, we will have to toss everything in the fridge—something we can ill afford. And, of course, insurance doesn’t cover stuff like that. Just like no one wanted to cover the TV we had to replace after the electrical explosion. Okay, I get it; this was an “act of god.” And the local power company had to restore power to about 1 million customers. But they brought in 4,000 workers—including people from other parts of the country. Shouldn’t they be able to bang all those restarts out by now?

I’m being a spoiled brat? Okay.

But I miss my electronica. Hell, I miss being able to see my way to the john! My bathroom is in the middle of the apartment, so it is the black hole without electricity. I got those little “tap” lights for us, so we’re walking around the apartment with those.

I’m so bored, I was in bed by 10pm for the last two nights.

And let me tell you, cold showers suck!

And I may run out of clean undies if they don’t get us electricity back soon.

I know I’m directing a show set in the early 1900s, but I really don’t need to live it to do that properly.

Well, let me go see if we can borrow a cup of kilowatts from the neighbors up the hill.

SIDEBAR:



Made a couple of attempts to contact the power company for at least a guesstimate as to when my power would come back. Had to tap dance thru 5 (count ‘me 5) “press this” options only to be left on hold for 6—7 minutes. I had to hang up and get back to work. Can we PLEASE go back to the days when a human being answered your call!!!!!!!!