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Community Corner

White Knuckle Parenting: Powerless

Curse word, curse word, PEPCO, curse word—or, how my family endured the power outage.

I would like to start this column with a sincere hope that you are reading this on a computer plugged into a working outlet in your home and not on a mobile device charged from purloined electricity found in a plug outside a local business. I would like to follow that up with some curse words for PEPCO, but I don't think I'm allowed to do that here.

I was watching my twitter stream last Friday night when it started to thunder. I watched the sky flash brightly and read tweet after morose tweet announcing new power outages. Based on the fact that this was a legitimate storm and we tend to lose power in a light breeze, I knew it was just a matter of time until we joined that sad group of the powerless. When our power suddenly blinked out at 10 p.m. that night, I wasn't surprised at all.

I may not have been surprised, but I was deeply depressed and quickly spiraled down into inconsolable sadness. Following is the timeline of that journey.

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10:15 p.m.: I call PEPCO to report my outage. The automated voice tells me they estimate my restoration time to be July 1 at 7 p.m. As it was still June at the time, this did not seem to be encouraging news. I also assume that they had merely chosen random numbers to create said ETR.

11 p.m.: The power comes back on. I am overjoyed. Four seconds later, the power goes back out. I silently curse PEPCO. Then the power comes back on! Then off. Then on! Then off. PEPCO, it turns out, is just toying with me. I frantically run around the house, turning off lights in hope that each 40 watts I give back to the system will let the electricity come back. It does not work. My power is still out.

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11:30 p.m.: I read by candlelight. I'm like a pioneer! I start to wonder how pioneers kept their ice cream frozen. I also think about how glad I am that my children are asleep, thus relieving me from having to explain how everything that they love (television, music, peeing with the lights on) requires electricity.

2:30 a.m.: I am woken up by a shrill beeping coming from the Verizon box in the basement. The beeping seems to be trying to tell me that the battery on the phone system is dying. This is irrelevant as the phone hasn't worked since the power went out four and a half hours ago. It turns out that Verizon is in cahoots with PEPCO in an effort to torture me. I put both companies on my mental enemies list. Then I use a flashlight to wind around toys, piles of laundry, and the furnace to get to the box. Cursing ensues.

7:43 a.m.: My kids wake up early on Saturday morning and learn about the power situation. Everything they want to do involves electricity. They do not care for this stark new reality.

8:19 a.m.: Tempers flare, fights are had, and, finally, an icy silence descends over the house. I start to contemplate a 100-degree day with no power and wonder how crowded the movie theaters will be.

8:30 a.m.: My husband takes a couple of children to Dunkin' Donuts to break the hostilities. It turns out that everyone in Wheaton is either in line there or at the McDonald's. It is grim out there.

8:47 a.m.: During their absence, I spend 15 frustrating minutes and two precious percentage points of power on my iPad to try to make sure my outage is reported through the PEPCO app. The one child who stayed home with me learns a slew of new curse words.

10 a.m.: We are supposed to attend a "weather permitting" event. I honestly have no idea what Saturday qualifies as. It turns out everyone else is as desperate as we are to get out of their houses and the event goes off as planned.

2:30 p.m.: We decide to brave the movies. The lady at the theater in downtown Silver Spring answers the phone with, "Regal Majestic 20; yes, we are open!" It seems that we are not the first people to call. We hop in the car and wind our way toward Silver Spring. There are a lot of trees down and a lot of power out.

3 p.m.: All of downtown Silver Spring has power. This makes me deeply resent all of downtown Silver Spring.

3:25 p.m.: Remember when I wondered how crowded the theaters would be? The answer is this: VERY. We end up in the second row. Have you sat in the second row of a movie theater lately? Probably not, because it sucks. Also, there are not enough seats together for my whole family. I watch all of Brave with a squirmy 7 year old on my lap.

5:15 p.m.: We end up standing in the foyer of Ray's the Classics in Silver Spring. This restaurant is far too fancy for my children in the state they are in. It is actually probably far too fancy for them in any state they are in, but we are hungry, so we get a table. Our waiter seems a bit snooty at first and I consider antagonizing him by asking him for the kids' menu that I know doesn't exist.

5:30 p.m.: The waiter is my new best friend. He brings me steak salad and chocolate mousse. I move Ray's to the top of my restaurant list. Even more so because the waiter turned out to be very kind and overlooked the fact that two of my kids only wanted to lie down in the air conditioned booth.

7:16 p.m.: We arrive home to find a work crew at the end of our street. It is unclear if they are a power crew or a tree crew. This turns into a moot point when they depart not too much later.

7:27 p.m.: I sit my kids out on the back porch with spoons, ice cream from the freezer, and instructions to eat all they can.

8:49 p.m.: Despair sets in. It has been less than 24 hours and I am broken.

9:01 p.m.: Our power flips back on. Everyone freezes in place for several long moments. I have never been happier. Based on the fact that they burst into spontaneous song and immediately turn on the disco ball in their room, my kids seem to feel the same way. As I lie in my bed later that night, enjoying my air conditioning and wi-fi, I realize just how much we take electricity for granted. I acknowledge to myself how lucky I am to have been born in the era of light switches. I would have been a terrible pilgrim and probably burned at the stake—not for being a witch, but for being too whiny.

Sunday morning at 10:21 a.m.: My husband asks, "Does anyone feel like wasting electricity just because we can?"

I realize how truly easy we had it this go-round. After hearing stories from friends and acquaintances who suffered damage, injury, or are still without power, my heart goes out to everyone who is suffering. Seeing all the trees and power lines down as we drove around was so scary. It made me realize how fortunate we were to have just lost power.

I also know just how lucky we are that we got our power back so quickly. I can't imagine how those of you who had to last so much longer felt. Last time we lost power, we weren't so lucky either and it was terrible. I hope that by the time this column is published that you all have your power back. If you don't, we have a power outlet you can borrow—and we'll save you a seat in the second row of the movie theater.

Jean, a.k.a. Stimey, writes a personal blog at Stimeyland; an autism-events website for Montgomery County, Maryland, at AutMont; and a column called Autism Unexpected in the Washington Times Communities. You can find her on Twitter as @Stimey.

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