Feeling Powerless

Apparently all of my Jim Cantore taunts toward the hurricanes last week were not appreciated, as one of the storm systems decided to offer a little retribution. Despite being at least a nine-day drive from any ocean, Louisville was hit with some of Hurricane Ike’s wind gusts a day after it made landfall, knocking out trees and most of the city’s power. I am now on hour number 121 without electricity.

This means, like every personal matter I tend to, I typed this at work. Even if I had power, I’d still probably have typed this at work, but only after paying some bills, checking my e-mail, checking my fantasy baseball stats, napping, shaving and doing some laundry.

The point is, even if I wanted to do all of those things at home, I couldn’t (except for napping). And it’s not looking like I’ll be able to anytime soon. Local news outlets are reporting that power is slowly being restored by LG&E, which, for those of you who don’t live in this area, stands for “Oh Is Your Power Out? Sucks To Be You.”

When it became apparent that this was not for the short term, I tried telling myself that not having power would be fun because it would be like camping. Then I remembered that camping sucks. Know why? No electricity.

And sleeping indoors without power is even worse than sleeping outdoors because at least while you’re outdoors, you don’t have electricity cruelly taunting you with its nearby light switches, televisions and refrigerators. After five power-free days, I still instinctively flip on the light switch every time I walk into a room, only to hear the switch laugh at me.

“Bwaa Ha Ha Haaaa! Silly human and your light-bulb dependencies,” it mutters mockingly.

But with little else to complain about, and knowing things could be a lot worse, the family and I have made the best of the situation. Without the luxury of TV or the Internet, the creative juices have kicked in and pulled out some exciting new ways to pass the time. For the first three days, we all played a game that I came up with called “Stare at the Living Room Wall.” After mastering that in every way possible, we then hatched a game called “Stare at the Kitchen Wall.”

I’ve tried to explain to my 18-month-old son that this is the way people lived way back when, like during the ‘60s. I don’t think he fully comprehends what’s going on because he usually responds by saying, “crackers” or “pee-pee.” Naturally he’s adjusted much better than my wife and I.

On the flip side, we’ve maintained much better spirits than our neighbors who have power and went less than 24 hours before it came back on. Despite their good fortune, they were shockingly rude and even violent two days ago when we simply stood outside their window and gazed longingly at their TV set. I tried to explain that they didn’t even notice we were there for the first hour, so what was the big deal, but that only bothered them more. So much for being neighborly.

That’s okay, though. We’re gettin’ by. The bathroom wall is just begging to be stared at.