48 Hours of Darkness

Thursday morning I was frustrated. My last shower had only been lukewarm, and I was looking forward to a hot shower before starting my day. I turned the knob only to discover that while we had heat, we had no water pressure. None. And no time for a bucket shower. I threw on a baseball cap and ran out the door.

I got rained on while out, so I was freezing by the time I returned home. Checked the shower again, and gratefully jumped in when I saw there was water pressure. Yippee! I got out, went about blow drying my medusa head, and right as I was finishing, the lights flickered.

Flickered.

Flickered out.

The only light in our pitch black apartment came from my laptop. We're used to short power outages, so we scrambled about lighting candles. The night was pleasant--candles and quietude. It was not so pleasant when we woke up early the next morning and the power was still out. No hot water. No coffee. No lights. No Internet. Nothing. We went out about our business, and figured it would be back on by the time we got home. It wasn't.

When working hours came to a close on Friday and there was still no power, we thought--we're going to be in the dark all weekend. Yippee. We figured out how to light the stove manually, so at least we could boil water. Bucket showers and french press coffee. Maybe I would survive.

My phone ran out of battery with no way to recharge it. Our fridgerator began to stink. There were used matches all over our house.

As we were walking home tonight, Schroomie #2 said she forgot to bring her little hand flashlight. I didn't have my phone, so we groaned about having to walk up five flights of stairs in the pitch black. She looked up and shrieked. "Is that our apartment?" I looked up. Were our eyes playing tricks on us? No--we had power! Lights were on in our living room. We looked down just in time to not trip and fall into the HUGE hole dug up out of the street. We're guessing that this hole is why we now have electricity!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Praise Him all creatures here below! Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts! Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Amen! We did the happy dance right in the middle of the street.