56 Minutes

[imood mood at time of entry: cheerful]

It’s a wonder that I can type this now, while listening to Blue October’s “Hate Me” on the radio, the smell of microwave-crunchy pizza (Yeah, I know! Amazing, huh? : D ) in my nose, and a cool breeze from my fan wrapping itself around me. Do you know why it is a wonder? It is because just five minutes ago, the power had been out in my entire neighborhood for the better part of an hour. Hence, the title of “56 Minutes.”

I was woken up at 10 AM this morning by the sound of my alarm clock sending out a distress call. Or, giving a final beep before it was abruptly shut off. Thanks to the purely battery run clocks in my possession, I wasn’t without all measure of time.

So I trudged to the front of the house to check if I had a red tag on my electric meter, signifying that the electric company had come out this fine Saturday morning for a visit. You know, for the usual. A little chat, a little prono sex with the electrician, a cup of hot tea, and to cut off my power. Just the basics, none of that fancy stuff.

Well, I had a peek around the side of my house, no red tag. Okay, good. I can work with that. It’s probably just my breaker. All I have to do is flip the switches, I’ll have my power back, and there is no threat to my episode of “Farscape” that would airing at 12 P.M. my time. When that didn’t work, I checked the meter in front of me. Before I could look at it long enough to tell me anything, the woman across the street from me, decked out in a lovely light blue robe and white night gown, told me that the power was out everywhere. “Oh, okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

I went back into the house, had a look around, and went back outside to see if anyone else was standing on their porches and wanted a bit of chat. I mean, what else was I going to do? Not very many people were out and about, but my next door neighbor was at his breaker, and I told him what the woman across the street had told me. He said okay and thanked me for the information. What’s funniest is not his reply, but the one shouted in response to my telling one neighbor that all of the electricity was out. Some unseen woman shouted over that her power was out, too, and that just made me laugh.

So I sat around for a while doing nothing and trying to think of something. I finally decided to sit down and reading the library book that my brother checked out and wanted me to read. It’s called “The Eleventh Hour.” It’s a picture-mystery book. I got settled down with that, a sleeve of unsalted crackers, and a jar of jelly to go to town with cracker and grape jelly sandwiches. I got as far as the end of the first page a several ‘sandwiches’ when the power came back on.

I gave a cheer and checked the clock. Power off and on within an hour. Hurrah! Now, while everything was off, I kept thinking about attacks on cities and the episode of “The Outer Limits” that I watched a couple of times. It showed a ‘perfectly normal’ suburb that suddenly has its power, cars, cell phones, etc. knocked out at once. The show goes on to have one house, for some reason, keep its power. It didn’t help matters that that house belonged to the new neighbors that no one had met yet. Of course, this a situation run by being human nature and that of the paranoia of suburban folk, they were immediately deemed strange, dangerous, and the cause of all the problems. At the end of the show, the neighbors formed a mob, knocked the new neighbors front gate down, and set the house on fire with the people still inside.

In all of the mayhem, we get a close up on a van packed off near the woods at the end of the neighborhood. Inside are government officials talking about the electric magnetic pulse that they had sent out, how the man who sent out the pulse didn’t intend for that one house to still have power, and their basic reaction to seeing all of these supposed well-mannered people losing it.

I couldn’t help but wonder if something of the same sort was taking place here. That’d be no good, because I don’t in any way have a pitchfork on hand to go off and join the local crazed mob. I still have that machete, though. I’m just not sure if that is what an angry mod is looking for in its members. Who knows?

Although common sense said that nothing of the sort was happening here, I still couldn’t help but let a tiny bit of unease poke at me. Because no sooner did everyone discover their predicament, did the sound of multiple police cars, helicopters, and airplanes flying overhead pick up. I mean, it picked up like someone had given out an order to mobilize the troops. *shrugs*

Well, I am sure that my pizza has cooled down enough in the microwave by now. I hope that everyone is doing okay.

Danielle