Off the Grid

Off the Grid

 

Well, it was another rainy day. That should come as no surprise. I think it’s either rained or snowed 364 out of the last 365 days. Maybe it just seems that way. Nothing out of the ordinary for western Pennsylvania this past year. That’s why what happened was unexpected.

It was around 2 in the afternoon. I had just gotten back from a run. It was raining a little, but nothing severe. Then the power blinked off. It came right back on, nothing to panic about and then it went out again. This time it wasn’t coming back.

My phone was only charged thirty percent at the time, so I had to conserve. Not only that, but no Wi-Fi. I would have to live like the pioneers or the way the Amish do today…I shouldn’t mock the Amish. It’s bad enough I used a photo for this post.

The Amish don’t allow themselves to be photographed. It call’s attention to one’s self. Of course that’s the same thing the rest of you believe. They also believe photographs in which they can be recognized violate the Biblical commandment, “Thou shalt not make unto thyself a graven image.” This is why you see so few Amish selfie’s. You never see a photo of an Amish standing next to Kayne. Wouldn’t that suck, there’s Kayne standing in your corn field and you can’t snap a picture with him.

Anyway, all you can see is the horse, so that’s the only one going to hell. He’ll be waiting for me there and hopefully I can smooth things over.

I couldn’t figure out why the power was out. Not for a few hours anyway. Could it be the end of the world? I was thinking about getting into the car and driving around to see if it was out everywhere, but the car was in the garage. Since the garage door is electric, I would have had to open it manually…and who has the time for that?

Finally, my wife got through to the power company. I was going to do it myself, but who has time for that? It turns out the outage was caused by a landslide caused by… (See rain above.)

They had no idea when they would be able to get it back on. My phone was now down to 25 percent and I began to contemplate how I would survive. I tried to think like the pioneers. Just think, you’re traveling across country, exploring the great unknown. Then, you get tired and want to rest. There’s not a Holiday Inn Express with a breakfast buffet anywhere in sight. What would you do?

They had no Wi-Fi…Of course, they didn’t know they didn’t have Wi-Fi. That would have really sucked. Could you imagine wanting something you wouldn’t be able to get for another 150 years?

How did they survive?

How did they watch Netflix?

How did they make microwave popcorn?

If you wanted to unfriend somebody, you had to do it to their face.

I realized they were a heartier bunch than we are now. We’ve grown soft.

Luckily after 4 hours the power came back on before nightfall. I didn’t know what my wife and I would do all night without television or internet. Talk? Who does that anymore?

Sundown was what worried me most. I was imaging coyote and deer somehow getting into the house and picking our bones clean. I wasn’t concerned about groundhogs. If one of those sons of bitches got in, I was going to beat it with a shovel. Payback for this long winter it has given us.

I better go now. It’s thundering outside and I want to post this before I lose power again. If you don’t see this, listen for me banging it out in Morse code on my Amish bell…Then again, how would you even know I tried to post it? Forgive me, I’m new to this power thing. It’s only been back on for a few hours.