So as you've probably already
know or have heard, St. Louis is in
the grip of the biggest power outage
in the city's history. It doesn't
help that a second round of lesser
storms rolled into town and pretty
much undid a day's worth of work for
AmerenUE. I've been without power at
my house since it hit on Wednesday,
the day before the hottest day of
the heat wave hit. I hid out in the
back of the store from 11 AM to 8
PM, then came here to Webster, and
when I finally got home at 9:30 the
heat index was still hovering above
100 degrees and the inside of the
house was just sweltering. Quickly I
realized this wasn't going to work
and as I sat, beads of sweat pouring
down my face from just being inside,
I got ahold of a co-worker who had
offered to let me sleep on her couch
earlier and I took her up on it. Not
exactly an ideal night.
Tonight, at least, the temperatures
have cooled down and so has the
humidity, so sitting out on the
porch listening to the Cardinals
game with a breeze rolling by was
actually very comfortable. That's
not to say that's ideal either. I'm
really getting fucking tired of
hearing people say "You know, there
was a time when people didn't have
air conditioning and had to sleep on
fire escapes" or "People got along
just fine without electricity
before."
Fuck that shit, it's called
progress.
I really doubt when someone's phone
lines go down they think about how
people got around with telegraphs
and mail service exclusively, or
when two men are stranded on
mountain and can't start a fire they
whimsically reflect on a time long,
long ago when the only option was to
freeze to death. I wonder if
a soldier in a firefight ever ran
out of bullets and thought about how
different it must've been when
people fought with fucking swords.
When the power returns I'll
update the What to Think section,
try to write a review for
Outerlight's
The Ship
and explain why all of you should
buy the new Doctor Who DVDs.
-K.
are you
prone to having blackouts?
