I always thought I was the type of person who could "roll with the punches" as they say (ever wonder who "they" is?), but Hurricane Rita has proven me a liar. Although I'm not living on the Gulf Coast of Texas or Louisiana, Rita decided to pay me and my little neighborhood a visit.
I woke up Friday night from a very vivid dream of someone stabbing me in the leg. As I pulled myself awake I felt my leg and found that it was wet. I thought "This can't be good." Either I have pissed myself through the thigh or someone had indeed stabbed me. I soon found that neither of the two was true, although I would have much rather had them happen. As the case may be, it was raining in my bedroom directly over my bed. We all know that is not a good thing. Rain belongs on the outside, not the inside. Coupled with the damage of indoor rain, the pain in my leg was terrible. I'm sure this was the ancient Chinese water torture I've heard about. No wonder it worked. I was ready to tell every secret I knew and even make some up if it would make my leg quit hurting. I counted myself lucky even if it was raining inside my house. I had electricity and I could always sleep on the floor in front of the air conditioner. Guess God heard me, because within an hour I was out of electricity. Let me tell you, it is hotter than six kinds of hell in Central Louisiana during a hurricane, and not in a good way.
My friend Davi (the refugee) and I learned that even the best of friends can grow to hate each other in 12 hours of stiffling heat, no tv or computer or music, no cold food, and in our case - no liquor or drugs. She wanted to drink and God help me, I wanted to dope. (Davi wants me to explain dope. For those of you who don't know what dope is, it is wonderful if taken in the right circumstances. Sometimes the only thing that will get you through a rough time is a handful of prescription drugs.) After about 10 hours of looking at each other, there was no tv to look at and listening to her breathe (that can be annoying) I was ready to jump on her. I could tell that the thought of knocking me in the back of the fucking head had crossed her mind a couple of times also. The only one who wasn't complaining was Amanda. Amanda is my very ugly dog. Everyone tells me she's not ugly, but I have eyes - I know she is. She is a rottweiler/schnauzer mix with a crooked foot and wirey hair that grows in circles on her back.
After thrashing around on my mattress that I had taken off the bed in the leaking room and put in the living room floor like white trash, Davi and I became kinda goofy. Well, I was goofy and she was humoring me. I was really missing my favorite cousin,Larry. Larry is a McGyver making fool. He can make a cell phone and air conditioner with a paper clip, a set of jumper cables, and a roll of duct tape. If he had been at the house, instead of in the "big house", I know he was have hooked up an extension cord to my truck battery and made electricity. If the world enters an appocolypse and modern civilization ends, I'm going with Larry. We both swore that as soon as we could we were buying generators, battery operated tv's, battery operated fans, battery operated refrigerators, and batteries.
I'm one of the lucky few in my neighborhood. My electricity came on last night (Sunday) around 11:30 pm. We had gone to my cousin's house to sleep in the air when I got the idea to call my house and see if the lights were on. When I did, the answer machine picked up. I hollered for Davi to pack her shit and let's git. As we approached my house I noticed everything was dark and either there were a lot of people mowing grass in the middle of the night or they were still running generators. If you have electricity, you don't need generators. When I turned on to my street, Davi muttered "I hope all your neighbors are either asleep or dead." "If they're asleep that explains the darkness and if they're dead they won't hear me cuss you." It was neither. As it turns out, only five houses in my neighborhood have power and I'm one of the lucky few. It goes without saying that I'm one of the most popular and hated people on my street. Popular because I can offer cool air and cold drinks to all who want them and hated because I have lights and they don't.
Oh, after thought - no school for two more days! That's a good thing.
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1 comment:
Gr8 blog~
went through 3 storm in central florida last year, no power for 5 days with each storm. My only saving grace was that I drink scotch at room temp. Also, we bought a big-ass generator for christmas, it has seemed to keep the storms from screwing with our electricity.
after power did come on, I did find it hard to sleep without the constant whir of generators. It musta been like white noise. As soon as power was restored, you could hear cheers throughout the neighborhood. I cranked down the AC to like 60.
My part of the nieghborhood was the last to get power, the part with the lift station got power first. I was gonna bitch, but the guy told me if the lift station doesn't have power, no water or sewage. Living without AC was tough, living without a bathroom would be unbearable
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