"Lightbulb, I love you..."

The title of this post refers to the punchline of an old joke where Count Dracula asks Igor, his hunchbacked assistant, to turn on the lightbulb and Igor's response was to cuddle the bulb tenderly and croon, "Hehh, hehh, lightbulb I lo-o-ove you!"

This reflects my sentiments exactly after having the power go out last night at 8 p.m. (Yes, I paid the bill, and the power company will hear from me shortly.) Their excuse, I hear, was a little freak summer storm. Like I allow a little tornadic action affect my work...

It was, to be succinct, HELL ON EARTH. I had no computer, no air conditioning and no auto-shutoff kettle (which really didn't matter because I had no bloody running water). I actually had to open windows and hear weird, geeked-out, misshapen teenagers walk by saying inane things like "That's not a little boy, that's a little girl with her head shaved."

This morning, nasty little birds woke me up with their incessant chattering and instead of grinding my personally blended Columbian fair trade, organic, free-range coffee beans and enjoying a finely filtered coffee, I had to go out for coffee (god knows what slavery and chemical fertilizers were involved), during which time because I was outside exposed to the world I had to talk to my (shudder) neighbors. Nicely. While trying to avoid Howie Mandel germs (mysophobia) and old people smells (gerontostinkophobia).

It all capped off an evening of acts of self sacrifice. Dangerous manual drugery between downpours made necessary because the tree in the front yard that the city owns shat branches all over the yard.

Then today, I had to read a real book to pass the time. With real pages. That give paper cuts. To avoid a full-fledged, deprivative-based panic attack I trained myself to huddle in my car at regular intervals to keep my iPhone charged. It remained my last link to civilization. And I was damned if I was going to be trapped in an end-of-the-world disaster without being able to tweet someone... anyone still alive.

I don't think I'll ever recover from the trauma of going into rooms and out of force of habit flipping switches only to find my actions produced no reactions whatsoever. I had to see my way around last night with the use of candles. They're made of wax, by the way, with strings inside that burn. Meanwhile my carefully stocked freezer began decomposing delicacies that I couldn't cook because I had no microwave or stove. All this on top of the fact that I only got to yell at my television once during this very trying time (right at the beginning, for being off and not turning back on). Sigh.

Thankfully, all that is over. The power is back on and once I have reset all the clocks in the house and take a load of soggy, now inedible post-frozen food to the garbage can, I pledge to lovingly use every electrical item at my disposal.

And never, ever take them for granted again.