This week I have been thinking a lot about how lucky I am. For starters, I have electricity. I also won a fabulous iPhone with no skill at all. The Heathen Family is swimming in good karma. My aunt and my best friend, on the other hand, are sitting in the dark right now. The sex offender on Fillmore Street has no power and neither does our neighborhood Kroger. The Dayton city power grid is a mystery to me, but for now it is a mystery like Santa Claus. Aaron and I have been good this week. My Aunt and my friend must have forgotten to floss or something. What would I do if I didn't have any power? I guess after all the food had spoiled and the suspense of that inevitability was over, I would relax and start reading. It would be a pleasant change of pace for a few days. It would be like camping when I was a kid, except ... I would be the one who had to figure out how to feed everyone with only a charcoal grill and no cold storage. Nope, nope, nopety, nope... I cannot live without electricity. Sure, I might enjoy being off the grid and living in the moment, but for me that means sitting outside in silence with a book and a hot cup of coffee. If I had a week to prepare myself, using the internet to research survival techniques and grill recipes, I might be okay. The reality is, I'll never make that emergency kit that Homeland Security is always talking about. It only took 24 hours without power for our community to descend into post-apocalyptic every man for himself behavior. My aunt stopped at a gas station to buy ice and witnessed a man with a hand truck empty the freezer and purchase all of the ice for himself. She only needed one little bag of ice and he took it all. I am not emotionally equipped for that kind of incivility. Electricity powers the televisions and the video game machines and the computers that keep our degenerates off of the streets. Without it, you've got teenagers outside exploring their inner vandal and lazy criminals taking advantage of open windows.
This Mama cannot live without electricity or the DSL modem that suckles at her 220 teat. If we humans don't manage to find a solution to our energy problems and are forced to live in darkness again, I will be the woman carrying around her lifeless Mac Mini hoping for a voltage miracle. It makes me shiver just thinking about it.
*Who can tell me what classic 80s comedy about stay-at-home parenting my post title comes from? Oh, and by the way this post was inspired by this week's Blog Blast over at the Parent Bloggers Network and sponsored by Yoplait Kids.
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