Uh-oh

There is nothing so emblematic of a sudden turn of fortune than the fleeting flash of light that signals a power outage. It's the visual equivalent of the record scratch sound effect, I think, but because of its invariable consequences it hits you in the stomach a lot more suddenly. Life with power, meet life without power. At least, when you have been an apartment dweller who has seen this kind of problem mushroom into two- and three-day intrusions into regular life then that knot in the stomach is quite real.

My circuit breaker blues started mildly enough. I flipped on the light above the stove this afternoon, and it went out. It's just the stove light, so I'm think, "BFD, I'll get to that bulb when I get to it." When I checked the fridge a little later, however, I saw that it had stopped getting power. Again, not the end of the world if you know what you're doing. Perhaps because this problem started with that little stove light, I avoided the usual dread that this was something serious. I grabbed the flashlight from the side of the bed and the keys to the basement. As I made my way to our circuit breaker, making sure not to hit my head on the low metal doors leading to the basement door, I even came upon what might be a good discovery; all the downstairs neighbors' stuff was gone. Might those inconsiderate, shiftless, very likely thieving people be moving out? The first thing I did was check that our stuff was still in the basement, and it was. Were it not M's stuff that's down there but my own, I think I'd trade it all to be rid of these people.

Anyhow, all the switches were still in the "on" position, so I flipped the three kitchen switches off and on. I came upstairs to check on the fridge, and nothing. On my next trip, I tried every switch and when I got back upstairs, that sinking feeling made its appearance. In the three years M and I have lived in this apartment power outages have uncovered not only that our previous neighbors were stealing cable from us, but that this apartment's wiring is a mess. Downstairs and upstairs are in some sort of illegal mix that we thought was fixed, then it wasn't, and now I found out is still all wrong. I lost power to half the apartment's lights--essentially the outer walls in the front half of the apartment plus the inner kitchen wall that powers the fridge. I checked with the neighbors, and as I feared I had turned out half their lights despite touching only the switches for our second-floor circuit breaker box. I expected them to be annoyed, but the woman who answered the door was more detached than anything else. She seemed to be aware of the problem, which surprised me. I remember now, as I did not then, that this has happened once since she's moved in but I hadn't bothered to let her know. Intense heat exited their front door on what is a relatively mild day. Also, the woman was smoking. These things made an impression on me, as did the fact that my eyes were as yet so unaccustomed to the dark that I could barely make out more than her silhouette.

Back I went into the basement, taking extra care with the switches, and on my third attempt I heard through the thin ceiling that the neighbors' lights were back on. (A thanks to my buddy III, who recommended I get back down there and try each switch one-at-a-time. It was then that I discovered the offending one). Good. I marched back up with tentative hope, but after several careful entries and exits I was in the perfectly unsettled, hurried state to make a full-on head bang on that low ceiling. Just...of course.

Back to square one at this point. The only sockets out were those powering the fridge. It was still early enough to call our landlord. I left a message. Then I drove to Home Depot where I picked up a medium-duty fourteen-gauge, fifteen-amp extension cord to power the fridge through the washer's outlet.

Now I'm back and this makeshift plan has done its job. The fridge is getting juice, my night laundry mission is delayed, and my landlord will be here at ten in the morning tomorrow. So now my night mission is to make this place presentable for company. Maybe not a dream Saturday night, but something that I should do anyway. I'm picking up M from work at six in the morning tomorrow, so maybe I can surprise her with an extra-clean home. Indeed, if I manage to pull off more than a so-so clean-up effort, then M has her own record scratch moment coming up.