BLACKOUT!

We woke up Sunday morning to no electricity. No heat, no microwave, no TV, no internet, no stereo, no laundry. Dependence upon electricity always amazes me -- virtually everything I'd planned to do that day involved power. Iain was supposed to watch the rugby game with our friend Glenn, but realizing he wouldn't be able to immediately dove into various household chores, but I didn't know what to do with myself. At one point, I was just standing in the middle of the kitchen - just standing there, useless, trying to figure out what the hell to do. I opted for a shower by candlelight (a QUICK shower since the hot water heater is electric) and then volunteered to call the power company again (Iain had already tried once and couldn't get through).

I was put on hold for 40 minutes. The on hold music was 60% Crowded House. This was cool at first, but grew old quickly. I mean, come on -- there are other Kiwi bands out there! There are other bands, period!

I finally hung up and Iain said he'd take a turn. Dealing with really nasty customer service reps (Verizon, Comcast, Tivo) has conditioned me to always follow telephone prompts correctly. How many times have you been trying to get through to someone, but you're put in the on hold purgatory? So you call back and press "1" when you should've pressed "2", hoping that'll you'll outsmart the system, only you get some super pissy CSR on the other end telling you that this is the wrong department and they cannot and will not help you. If you're lucky, they'll just transfer you to back to on hold hell, but usually it's a bitchy "You need to hang up and call [insert number you JUST dialed]" Therefore, Iain and I both took turns patiently waiting on hold, entertained by 'Don't Dream It's Over' and 'Locked Out', refusing to press "1" for Electrical or Fire Emergency Only. "But we don't have a fire!!!" I insisted, terrified of what would happen when the CSR found this out. However, by this stage, we'd been without power for almost 4 hours and it was getting scary -- we had no heat and a fridge full of beer, so we took a chance.

Iain ended up getting through to someone immediately who didn't mind that we didn't actually have a fire. He was totally helpful and scheduled someone to come out within 4-6 hours. So, we went for a walk, then came home and enjoyed our blackout with some candles, wine, and Monopoly. We could use the stove, thankfully, so we made dinner. It wound up being SO much fun. At first I was feeling a bit anxious without my laptop ("But what if someone emails me?????"), but I got over it quickly.