Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Unplugged

For reasons that shall remain private, I spent the better part of my day yesterday sitting in my house without electricity waiting for Ameren to show up and fix it. I spent nearly 10 hours in my house with no power whatsoever. A house without power is very, very quiet. And very, very boring.

Every time I would think of something to do, it required electricity in some fashion. Watch TV? No. Computer? No. Laundry? No. Eat food? No - mostly because I was determined to save the food in the freezer at least and not open the refrigerator because food stays good longer if you don't open it. Music? No - my iPod is apparently out of batteries.

But after I panicked about not being able to check my email, I had a pretty good day. I read 300 pages of a mystery I've been struggling to get through. I listened to the sounds of the neighborhood. I cleaned out my daughter's drawers and switched her to all summer clothes. I trimmed a couple of shrubs in front of the house, pulled weeds from the flower bed, and ripped out a dead shrub. That last one was a lot of fun and helped me work through my anger at myself for the whole situation, even though I did land on my ass once trying to use all of my body weight to pull out the root cluster.

I did have my cell phone available, but it was running low on charge and I needed to be able to yell at Ameren if needed as the day got later.

We are so used to electricity that being without it is strange and foreign. I can't tell you how many times I walked into a room and flipped on the light switch and was surprised when nothing happened. I reached for the remote about 10 times to turn on the TV. I glanced at the digital cable box at least 20 times to see what time it was. I literally thought, "Well, I guess I should do some laundry" too many times to count.

I worried about what would happen when the sun went down and I couldn't read anymore. I was glad it wasn't any hotter or colder than it was so I didn't suffer from lack of heat or air conditioning. I thought about whether I could force myself to take a cold shower in the morning. I worried about what my hair looked like because I couldn't use a hair dryer or curling iron.

But most of all, I thought, "People used to live like this?"

*Shudder*

I would SO not make it as a pioneer woman. My childhood dreams of being Laura Ingalls Wilder are shattered.

5 comments:

Katie said...

What a crappy day!!

snicketmom said...

It can be kind of quaint to go for a day unplugged, but yeah, I don't know how I would survive without electricity. Like you said, at least the weather was decent for it. I hope you didn't lose any food.

Jennifer said...

Well, at least you made progress in the book. Did you start to enjoy it?

Ms. PH said...

I threw away the milk and eggs because I felt weird about them.

I did start to like the book. But, I'm disappointed because this is 650 page book and it took me 450 pages to enjoy it.

Unknown said...

You would have been fine as a pioneer because you wouldn't have been use to electricity.

Last year when we didn't have power the kids thought it was cool. Then John asked if he could watch tv. We explained what all worked on electricity and the novelty was gone.