14 August 2003 ~ "I can't see New York..."

I haven't been able to stop giggling intermittently for several hours.

I was playing around on the Yahoo News site, and happened to read an article about the Northeast blackout that apparently happened today. The article has been taken down now, but it stated that hundreds of New Yorkers (City, that is), lost power, and began wildly running around the New York City financial district, screaming.

Over the freaking lights going out.

Seriously, there is no reason to run around screaming because your lights are out. Even if it IS sort of troubling to not have air conditioning in 90-degree weather, it's still not a reason to run around screaming. Anyway, you only get hotter from running around and screaming. Duh.

Besides, I lived in New York State myself for 20 years, and *I* never had air conditioning, not even in 90-degree weather. Who the hell CARES?

New Yorkers are so spoiled. Poor flippin' babies.

Seriously, people were running around and screaming.

Doesn't anybody listen when folks tell you to "stay calm during an emergency situation"? If you've really GOT to panic, just get under your desk and put your hands over your head. Even if you actually perceived your lights going out and your modem turning off as an "emergency," what's the USE of running and screaming?

Anyway, I'm horribly amused by people who actually ran and screaming.

Now, don't think I'm being insensitive. I also heard that a number of people got stuck in elevators and subways. That is sort of scary. Not, by any means, a reason to run and scream (where would you run to, in an elevator?), but it's still sort of scary. Incidentally, I was stuck in an elevator in New York City once -- the one and ONLY time I have ever been stuck in an elevator. That was at Port Authority, an evening when Peter had gotten us hopelessly lost and was bitching and griping, and as soon as we stepped into the elevator and the doors closed, a fire alarm went off, and we were stuck for a grand total of two or three minutes. It wasn't pleasant, especially since Peter was being a total prick. I really feel for those people who are stuck somewhere. But, those people who are stuck somewhere are not the ones who are running around and screaming.

Duh.

I think power outages are great once in awhile! At my dad's house, we had them several times a year, because we lived on a hill, and ice, lightning, breezes -- anything could knock our power out, and it would usually be several hours before it came back on. We never had any explanations for it. No apologies. We didn't flip out. We'd all get confused for about twenty seconds, and the dog would bark, and then somebody would go for the candles. We never did buy any candle holders, so we used two-liter Coke bottles for the candles. Not exactly elegant, but romantic in a ghetto sort of way.

Once, Norman and I blew a fuse in our apartment. Our brand-spankin' new room-mate at the time had decided to plug his SUPERMICROWAVE (with power comparable to an atomic missile) into the wall while the television, two computers, all the lights, a stereo, and the toaster, were all on. Then he put some Ramen noodles in it, and set the thing to cook for, like, five hours or something. Of course (I mean, duh...), the power went out.

So the three of us lit candles (we had a few holders), made milkshakes with the ice cream in the freezer and some milk, and spent the night talking, playing games, and making music. Acoustic music. What's so unpleasant about that? Sure, it was inconvenient. I was making a mix tape at the time, and, of course, something was cooking... But drinking milkshakes by candlelight with good friends and good tunes... Dude, if you have to run and scream about THAT, there's something wrong with you...

My mom called, sounding sort of freaked out. She'd had sort of a rough day as it was, having locked herself out of her car while it was running. Plus, she'd been at work and hadn't heard the news, and had no idea why everybody ELSE was freaking out. Some of the power went out in Binghamton, apparently, because of a fire at the local power station. (Presumably due to the BIG power outage -- there's got to be SOME sort of correlation...) There were rumors that all of the power might go out, maybe in order to conserve energy, which would be funnelled to New York City folks who are stuck in elevators. Anyway, my mom's usually pretty good at crises. Come to think of it, she's great at them. And in all my memories, she was always the one who managed to find the candles whenever we had a power outage on the hill. She usually didn't trip over anything, either.

So, if your power goes out after you read this, your assignment is this:

1.) Do not run and scream. If you run and scream, you're only making yourself look like a jackass, and embarrassing your city, and making people like me laugh at you.

2.) Light some candles. Everybody has candles. Put them in two-liter Coke bottles if necessary.

3.) Get something to play music with. If you don't have anything that doesn't plug in, or if you don't make music yourself, I bet you have a little CD or tape player that takes batteries. Who DOESN'T have one of those? Yeah. Everybody has one of those. Get one of those out, and listen to some music with which you can sing along.

4.) Go outside and enjoy the light from the stars.

...Did I mention that you shouldn't scream and run?

Heh!

Love,
~Helena*