Unprepared

Tuesday was a windy day here in Michigan.

I very, very windy day.

Chris left work early to pick up the new NHL video game.  The game his life revolves around for months every single year.

He gets home with enough time to play a game before I get home with Ian.

When he walks into the house he finds the power is out.

After I get home with Ian we swing through Burger King to pick up some dinner, since we are totally unprepared for an uncooked meal.  Burger King has Mac n' Cheese so we know that Ian will at least eat that since one of his four food groups is Mac n' Cheese these days.

After dinner I get my cell phone, which has been charging in my van with a GPS power cord (I don't have a car charger) and I call the power company.  After going through the automated system the robot women voice tells me that "the estimated restoration time is Wednesday September 8th at 4:00 PM"

Wednesday. 4:00 PM.  THAT IS AT LEAST 24 HOURS FROM NOW!

Oh $#^%!  We just went and bought nearly two weeks worth of groceries on Monday!  What the hell do we do with everything in the refrigerator?

Off to Meijer the three of us march.  $60 later we have a giant 5 day cooler and 3 bags of ice.  Hopefully enough to salvage our bounty of food until the power comes back on.  In retrospect we probaly could have just used the $60 to replace the food but we were in survivor-mode.  Chris was even talking building a fire just like Les on Survivorman would.

After hauling the cooler and ice in the house and getting everything I can moved over into the cooler.  We sit around trying to figure out what to do with ourselves.  Ian keeps bringing us the remote, his way of asking for TV time.  How do you explain to a two year old that you can't turn on the TV because there is no power?  You don't.  You just are the bad guy that won't let him have TV time.

As the clock rolls past 8:30 PM it is starting to get pretty dark in the house and our meager lantern and candles can barely cast enough light for Ian to play by. 

I decide to hop into a candlelit shower and get Ian to bed in our bed, so that we can keep watch over him should the weather get worse.  Besides with no light what is there to do while awake anyway.

As I start the shower I hear a whoop from the living room.  Chris was hooting and hollering that the power came back on.

By the time I wrapped in a towel to go blow out the rest of the candles Chris was already firing up with new game.

Later we both marveled at how unprepared we are for emergencies, and how much we really rely on electricity in our lives.

It takes a little reminder like this now and then to reaffirm to us how blessed we really are to have the luxury of power and gadgets to help us every day.  Just a few hours without and we don't even know what to do with ourselves anymore.