Ten Things Of Thankful, All Rolled Up Into One

I cannot see the digital clock in our bedroom at night for two main reasons: 

(1) rather than putting them away, my husband piles his clean clothes on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, which then blocks my view of the clock; and
(2) even when there is no pile of clothes, I would have to squint too hard to make out the time, and it's just not worth the effort.

Therefore, I pick up my cellphone in the night to check the time, rather than rely on the digital clock that I can't see.

I woke up about 5:45 as the room brightened with the morning sun and then dozed off again until about 6:30, when I heard my husband say, "There's no power."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"The clock is off." I can't see it. "And the fan isn't on anymore." It's pointed at him, not me.

"Well, that sucks," I said, reaching for my phone and reporting the outage on the electric company's website as Fletcher jumped on the bed and laid down on top of me, pressing against my very full bladder. My husband got up and looked out the window, trying to gauge whether our neighbors were out of power as well (impossible to tell, as it was broad daylight already). 

My bladder couldn't take it anymore, so I pushed the cat off and was availing myself of the facilities when the phone rang. Now, the handy thing about being married to a former funeral director is having a phone in the bathroom, and I went ahead and answered it, figuring it was the electric company. And it was. 

"Have you checked your main circuit breaker?" asked the perky voice on the other end of the line.

"Um, no," I answered.

"Because this is the first report we have had of an outage in your area. Could you go check it and the one outside? I'll wait on the line."

This put me in an awkward situation, as I was still, uh, relieving my bladder and couldn't leave the room at that very moment, and it wasn't until THIS VERY MINUTE that I realize I should have sent my HUSBAND to check the breaker, given my situation. But I set down the phone and quickly finished what I was doing. (PEEING. I WAS PEEING.) As I passed my husband, who, now that I think about it, was just sitting in the recliner in our bedroom, watching me scurry out of the bathroom and put on a pair of shoes, he started to hand me the cordless phone to take with me. Which doesn't work when the power is out. (This was his contribution to the entire debacle, I might add, other than to wake me up to tell me we had no power.) 

I walked down the hallway to the stairs and stopped short at the alarm pad. 

"Will I be able to turn this off with no power?" I called down the hall.

"I don't know," was the reply from the recliner.

I punched in the code. Instead of turning off, the alarm beeped rapidly. Loudly. I said a bad word (or three) and punched it in again, figuring I had nothing to lose at this point, and the beeping stopped. I went down the stairs and down the hallway to the top of the basement stairs and flipped on the light. 

No power. Duh.

We've had about 50 flashlights come and go from the cabinet just inside the kitchen over the years, so it was a crapshoot as to whether or not one would be there when I reached inside, but I was rewarded with a flashlight when I opened the cabinet door. The bad news was that it was the wind-up kind, so I had to wind it up before it would come on.

Wind it again before I got to the bottom of the stairs.

Wind it again as I picked my way through the laundry baskets that are only in the way when it's dark and you're trying to get to the breaker box.

Wind it again as I shone it on the breaker box, seeing nothing that looked like a flipped breaker.

Wind it one last time as I navigated through the laundry baskets again and up the stairs.

Next, I had to go outside IN MY PAJAMAS and check the box at the back of the house, which I didn't even know existed. Which I may or may not have checked, because I never really determined what it was, but I was able to rule out the cable box and the telephone box.

Inside the house again, I went up stairs, down the hall, across the bedroom, and into the bathroom, where the telephone receiver was dangling next to the toilet. Ms. Perky Voice was patiently waiting as I told her the breakers were FINE. She promised to send out a crew and that was that.

My husband took a shower and left for work, remarking it was going to be a FUN morning when the kids got up and found out there was not only no power, but there was no internet, as the router would not work without electricity. Swell.

I used up nearly all my battery power on both my phone and Nook playing Candy Crush (worth it - finally beat level 374) before it was time for me to brave it and take a tepid shower before leaving to get a haircut. 

With only the light coming in the bathroom window, I put my hair up in a messy bun, ignored the wanky bangs that I would have rectified had I had POWER and could have used my straightener, and applied make up that looked pretty fine from the bathroom but later found made me look more like a raccoon than I would care to admit when I got outside and saw it in the daylight in the rearview mirror. 

Naturally, just as I finished getting myself as presentable as I possibly could and was leaving the house with just enough time to get to the salon, the power came on. Too little, too late.

Because I'd sucked up most of the battery playing the ever important games of Candy Crush, the first thing I did when I got in the car (AFTER checking my clown make up) was plug my phone into the charger. Or I WOULD have, if the charger had been there. I checked my purse. No charger. Checked inside the console. No charger. Checked the other car. No charger. Unlocked the door and went back in the house. No charger. Locked the door and returned to the car. Checked the trunk. No charger. Opened the backdoor. The charger was in the backseat, under a shopping bag, and I have no explanation for that.

Finally on the road to the hair appointment, I suddenly realized I forgot to get some cash from my little stash (it's very small, so don't even CONSIDER robbing me for it; it would not be worth the jail time). I dug through my purse, knowing I had dropped some cash in there the day before when I took my daughter for a haircut, hoping I hadn't used it all. Naturally, when you WANT a traffic light to turn red, you get green lights all the way, but eventually, I caught a red light and was able to stop and rummage through my purse, coming up exactly $10 short. No problem, though, because my bank has an ATM that isn't too terribly far out of the way, so I swung the car around and headed there. But as I approached the drive-up ATM, my way was blocked by a Brinks armored truck and two men servicing the machine. For real. The next closest ATM was over a mile past the hair salon, which would make it a sure thing I would be late for my appointment. I took one last-ditch effort to look for money and pulled out some one dollar bills. Ten of them, as a matter of fact, and now I could proceed to the hairdresser's. 

I was on time, skinning into the parking lot at 9:14 for my 9:15 appointment.

My hairdresser said the picture I found depicting a haircut I wanted was one that actually would work on my hair. (A nice change of pace, since the cuts I find are usually met with words to the effect of, "I could CUT it that way, but it would never look like that because your hair is thick and curly and the model's hair is thin and straight.")

And that, my friends, is worth TEN things of thankful right there.

The End.

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