I love my kids. I learn so much on a daily, hourly and minute-by-minute basis from those sweet little beings that I have always believed there is nowhere else I would rather be than cradled in the bosom of domestic bliss, a child on each side, reveling in the aura of motherhood. I have held this belief near and dear to my heart right up until Sunday, December 21st, 2008 at 6:08 p.m. That is the exact moment that the power went out in our house. Not for a moment, not for an hour, but for days and days and days.
It was a freak winter storm and I haven't been able to talk about it until now. I have never been in a freak winter storm- well, not as a parent. I remember a freak winter storm in 1990 that involved brandy, a roaring fire, a shirt exchange in a local bar and wild sex. Well, that's what I remember. Ahhh youth- and speaking of youth- there they were- a 15 year old, a nine year old and no electricity.
I wasn't worried. Not this mom! I had given up my wild ways 15 years ago and was content to be the Ubermom ever since. The kids, typically buried in something electronic, were a bit concerned but I reassured them it would be "fun" like camping. My nine-year old daughter was already standing in front of the big screen pushing the remote power button on and off. "MOM (she screamed in utter horror) THE TV ISN'T WORKING!"
"No honey," I said calmly (knowing why my family has nicknamed her Marry Well) "the power is out."
"Can't we just watch tv in the dark?" she pleaded.
"Power out means more than lights darling" (I felt an edginess to my voice, which surprised me- It was 6:16 pm) it's everything electrical."
"You mean our toilet isn't working?!"
"Marry Well, Marry Well, Marry Well" my son said under his breath. We all do this ever since she looked up just before starting kindergarten, holding a picture of a goat, and said "is this a six, or a sheep?" Later in the year, her kindergarten teacher pointed out in the school conference that "at least she's a compassionate little girl" as though I had been given a consolation prize to make up for lack of functioning intellegence on the second one. My son had been a rocket scientist in the same school, charting off of the charts in every subject (for fun he built his own atom-splitting chamber during kindergarten nap time.) I guess the school looked at my having another child six years later as some sort of reckless chance-taking with the gene pool that obviously didn't pay off.
"No sweetheart, that's plumbing. We have a gas fireplace, that will still work- we have plumbing, that will still work, but everything we plug into the wall will not work until the lights come back on."
"Why?"
And so it started. What was I Freaken Bill Nye the Science Guy?! I snapped after just 20 minutes. How the hell was I supposed to answer her? I had no idea how electricity worked and why exactly was ours off anyway? I could see lights further down the hill? Why didn't we have lights?! This was PG and E wasn't it? It was a conspiracy because my stupid neighbor had put up 30,000 Christmas lights and then the neighbor across the street had put up 31,000 Christmas lights not to be undone. I bet that PG & E drove around cutting power to light hogs who sapped up our natural resources! I was about to use that as an answer when I prudently realized I needed to get ahold of myself.
7:00 pm- It was getting colder... and very dark. Seven was Sig's bedtime but the minute you ventured past the safety of the gas-heated living room fireplace, it was like entering the ice caves in Malad, Idaho. Your body temperature dropped with each step, hypothermia started to set in by the time you hit the bathroom and going beyond that toward a bedroom- forget it. It had become a sub-zero zone of no return. Knowing it would do nothing but get colder and more desolate in the house we, Sig and I , formed an exploration party to find flashlights, a mattress and bedding. Outside a freezing rain was covering everything in a blanket of ice over snow, inside it was just as deadly. We tied a line around ourselves and anchored it to the sofa. The kids were already fighting, which made the expedition seem almost appealing. Bundled with sofa pillows, throws and our duck boots we headed into the hallway using a tap light as our guide. Slowly we passed the once useful thermostat. Out of curiousity I held up the taplight, growing weaker by the second, and looked to see how cold it had become. Sixty-five degrees. Hmm. It seemed colder. I unpacked some pillows from around my midsection. Provided we weren't too long I decided my core temperature wouldn't be that significantly affected. After much ado, we were able to haul the 18 inch pillowtop queen mattress into the living room along with bedding, flashlights and some candles. Good thing about the candles, as the flashlight batteries had all gone mysteriously missing. Funny though, Barbie's beach house had all of it's little lights and elevators working just fine, as did the Mylie Syrus Tour Bus and Polly Pockets Carnival. Hmmm.
9:00pm With everything now piled in the living room we were ready for a good nights slumber (and even if we weren't, there was nothing else to do with no electricity) hopefully the lights would be on in the morning.
The next day. Nothing. No lights. Still darkness. The 15-year old was fine. He had sent over 2000 text messages throughout the night and early morning hours. We had slept 4-up sideways in the bed and I now knew what the term "packed like sardines" really meant. Sig immediatly opted for going to work (which was vehemently opposed most days) and harrassed me until I chained up the old Toyota. I remember the face of Sig smiling and whistling while heading out the door to drive on two inch thick ice sheets for 12 miles in a blinding snowstorm. I was left home with the kids... Hmmm.
Noon. Note to self. Cut down any foliage that blocks sunlight or indirect light or even light from a nuclear powerplant 4 million miles away from our house. It was still dark in the middle of the day. It was still cold. The children were trying various ways to kill each other in the living room. I had started calling PG and E hours ago. I disguised my voice and asked for updates every 10 or 15 minutes.
"Tell us again about the time you fell down mom!Tell us again about the time you bought a turtle.Tell us again about the time you called me stinker.Tell us again about the time I fell off of the bed.Tell us again what I used to call grandma, Tell us again about how you wore shoestellusagainabouthowyoulearnedtocounttellusgainaboutwhereyouboughtapaperclip- ARGHHHHHHH!
"Hello PG&E, ah... yes, this is Mr. Marlon Brando. I am staying with friends who have no power and I think it is just horrible. When will it be restored? What? No, I didn't call 10 minutes ago? I have no idea if Jennifer Anniston is also staying at this same phone number? What do you mean I sound like a woman with Kleenex in my mouth?!"
5:00 pm. Sig arrived home with Subway sandwiches. Thank God someone had foresight enough to bring cold food! The only thing that would make this better is if there were Slurpies in the bottom of the bag- nope. Just chips. The kids fought over who had the biggest sandwich, who had the biggest cavity, who had the biggest fart and then Sig announced rather matter-of-fact, "I'm goin to have a few brewskies and watch the game at the Cantina."
"What F-ing cantina? We are not in Mexico, we are in the Northwest in the middle of an F-ing killer blizzard and we are trapped and will probably die!"
Again with the chains and the ice-sheets coating the street, Sig was gone. I tried to tell the kids stories. Bible stories. Many bible stories about siblings who fought and were irritating and so God set them on fire or turned them to salt or basically just caused them to disappear. "Mom's stressed" my son observed, and then went back to texting. Em found a transistor radio and taking the batteries from our tap light, she powered it up and began listening to music that you could hear even though she had earphones on. Sig arrived home in time to go to sleep and I stayed up all night praying for power.
Day 3. No, I'm not kidding. It was actually the third day of this hell. By this time I have hatched a plan. I will eat my children if the power does not come on by day 5. I don't care what people say and I don't care if open restaurants and laundromats are only two and a half blocks away. If the Donner party could get away with it, so could I. I will eat them and plead insanity. My ex and the roommate next door will back me up. The two of them had put on every bit of clothing they owned because of the extreme cold, but had politely declined coming over even though we had a gas fireplace! They had no lights, no heat, no hot water- but they also had no children. I will eat my children and then explain how we were getting hungry and I did not want them to suffer. Something, anything. I put on my boots and began to walk the neighborhood, cell phone in hand. I was determined to find the source of the power outage and report it's exact location and, if necessary, get up there and change the dang bulbs myself. After 4 hours of tramping in the snow- low and behold, I actually found it! Well, I found a person who found it. I got on the phone and would not get off until PG and E had taken every last detail I could share. They knew about the blown transformers, the wires on the poles, the little hawk that was siting in the old pear tree and the socks that were in the gully just past ol' man Gray's renovated 1950's rambler. Nothing got by me. Now, surely they had heard the problem so succinctly, they would be on it.
Twelve hours later. It is 3 am. It is still dark, but I don't care. I am standing underneath the blown transformers still waiting for a truck. Am I too optimistic? Was it too much to ask to have a flipping PG and E truck come and check out the situation? Honest to God, if i could figure a way to get past that hawk without getting my cheeks ripped off, I would climb the pole and fix the stupid thing myself! Earlier in the evening I had tried to pull a Norma Rae and get my neighbors to rally so we could call the media as lights were on all around our little neighborhood, but they all said they were too cold or they were going to a friends house or something. Babies. Well, I was in it for the long-haul- Me or PG and E- I wasn't going to sit down and take it- It was WAR! I dialed the phone again...
4 am. They won. Since they obviously are part of the Illuminata, that famous underground group of Satanists that control Loyds of London, Europe and the weather at the Bellevue Arts Festival, I shouldn't be surprised they could make it so cold at three in the morning. I am now at home trying to decide which child to eat first. It is obvious I can't have them both here for another day. I will go mad. Perhaps PG and E gave me these children and it is all a big plot. Perhaps I am the second coming of Christ... I had to pull it together. Sig had gone into work early and had become a model employee now that there was no TV. I decided I would eat my daughter first, but just as I was luring her onto the linoleum, the doorbell rang. It was my son's girlfriend. His cell had died and she was worried about him. Fine, I'd play nice while she was here and eat Emme later. I opened the refridgerator to see what condiments would go well with my youngest and peeyouie! It smelled like rotting everything in there! I looked into the gray hole that was once a brightly lit refridgerator interior. It was rotting everything. Maybe I'd just eat myself. Surely there were those in the ill-fated Donner party who just sat down and self-dined. Just out of boredom. "Crazy thoughts" I told myself, "just the children".
5pm- The girlfriend was still here, Sig was home, and I had decided to eat everyone. I resented them all by now. It was day 567 or something like that. I no longer spoke in multiple syllables and any light, be it natural or artificial, hurt my eyes. I had been wearing the same clothes since this all started- yes, right down to the underwear- and a chihuahua was lodged up my backside. My hair was tangled, I had smudged my mascara and was wearing two different tennis shoes. There was no hope. I came out of the kitchen with a twisty wine opener (it had gotten dark again and I couldn't find a knife) and a wet-wipe in case of spills. They all just looked at me.
"What are you doing mommie?" asked the first victim. I wondered myself. This was my child, my youngest, could I really eat her? My 15-year old had just gotten his first girlfriend, the girl was adorably sweet and seemed quite innocent. Could I really eat them? And then there was Sig, I lunged toward Sig when suddenly we heard a rumbling. We all looked out toward the darkened street, and what to our wondering eyes should appear, but PG and E, they were finally here! We all rushed outdoors to greet them.
"What do you want for Christmas?!" They shouted. That's right! It was Christmas eve!
"Lights, Electricity, Heat!" We all followed them down the street cheering. I ran back and got those rotten cookies out of the smelly refridgerator and dressed them up with some nice (I think, it was still dark) tissue- suddenly 'Blink'! We were back in civilization.
I don't know if I would have really eaten anyone. I will never know as fripping PG and E got our lights on in 10 minutes once they were kind enough to show up. But I can now tell you, from experience- that Weight Watchers and Dr. Phil are actually correct. Sometimes we eat out of hunger, sometimes we eat out of boredom, but much of the time, whether you realize it or not, eating out of frustration is lurking in there somewhere.
till next time, Bon appetit!
TOL
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