We covered our drafty windows with quilts, turned the living room couches into beds and slept in front of the gas fireplace.
For lights, we burned an expensive pair of pillar candles that have decorated our hallway for years. For entertainment, we played card games, read books and visited with our neighbors.
At times, I wished we had a hand-crank coffee bean grinder, not to process wheat like Mary did in the classic “Little House on the Prairie” book, but to grind gourmet coffee beans. Our Coleman coffee pot and gas barbecue turned out to be pretty handy.
All in all, we were fortunate to have weathered the situation without huge inconveniences. My husband is an avid outdoorsman, an emergency services worker, and a survivalist at heart, so we had a lot of gear readily available such as lanterns, coolers and extra warm sleeping bags.
I knew he would have loved to break into an emergency box of military surplus MREs and water purification tablets, but our power was restored long before things reached that level.
Still, we learned a few lessons on the way.
1. It turns out that we have at least eight cellphone car chargers, including ones that date to our very first flip phones, but none of them work on the phone that I upgraded to about a year ago.
2. If the power goes off just after you dropped noodles into boiling water for spaghetti, simply cover the pan and those noodles will steam and cook in about 20 minutes. Our kids complained a little about the spaghetti, but I think that had less to do with the al dente texture and more to do with the fact that I had secretly cut regular noodles with whole grain ones. Guess it’s a good thing we were dining by candlelight that night.
3. The joy of a hot shower is never as appreciated as when you’ve gone without one for more than three days. I hear the same thing goes for toilet flushing, too, according to friends with electric well pumps.
4. Being without the convenience of electricity can really mess with your head.
Even though I knew we were perfectly safe and taken care of, there were times when I was a little nervous from the silence in our neighborhood and all of the “what ifs” that ran through my head. Perhaps I’ve seen too many end-of-the-world movies that involve guns, looting and a shortage of Twinkies.
As the outages continued, people seemed to get more cranky, whiny and callous. Yes, I even fell into those categories at times, although I like to think of it more as being cold, tired and bored from cabin fever.
At the height of the outages, I heard someone talking about how icicles had interfered with their satellite television system, and I wanted to scream, “Are you seriously whining about having bad cable, when tens of thousands of people don’t have electricity and many are in desperate situations?”
And as time progressed, weird thoughts filled my mind, such as “If only we had power, I could do laundry, wash dishes and finish sewing that quilt that’s been sitting in a box for about a decade.”
Clearly, the power outage brought out a domestic goddess that’s buried deep inside me, who only appears when there’s an emergency, a pending visit from out-of-town family members, or a television marathon of “Hoarders.”
5. A power outage is a total adventure when you’re a kid.
My kids loved playing flashlight tag with the neighbor kids, using sleeping bags every night and eating cereal out of paper bowls.
Yes, of course, they complained about missing television and video games. But they rediscovered Legos, cars and other non-electronic toys that helped get them through those dark hours.
On the second night, we started a novel together, and our oldest son said, “Wow, it’s like I can see pictures in my head when you’re reading the story.” It’s amazing how life changes when you are forced to slow down and unplug from all of the gadgets that cause static in your life.
A few hours after our power was restored, the lights went out in the kitchen. I reached for a flashlight, thinking we were probably in for another dark night.
But it turns out our boys just wanted to play their favorite new game: “power outage.”
Lisa Pemberton covers education for The Olympian. She also is one busy mama with three young children. Reach her at 360-754-5433 or lpemberton@theolympian.com.
