Let's Discuss: Power Outages

 

I'm back! The power is back on! The AC is back on! Lights and TV are back on! But most importantly, the AC is back on!!! If you saw my post the other day, our power went out Friday evening after a popup storm blew through. There were quite a lot of trees down, power was out all over town and in neighboring counties. It was dreadful because it was July. Summer. In St. Louis. Who is notoriously known for hot and humid summers.

What I Learned During the Power Outage

One thing I learned, or really had reiterated because I already knew this: I was not built for summer. I was not built specifically for summers in St. Louis. I've mentioned that it seems like everyone here basks in the heat and humidity, my late grandmother loved it. I seemed to have missed that gene. Over the past three days, I feel like I learned my internal body temperature has to be a few degrees above normal because omg, I felt like I was slowly dying inside these last few days. 

I did leave the house on occasion to soak up AC at the stores and Bread Co (that's always been my go-to after power outages!). But you can only stay out of the house for so long. I retreated to the basement for the most part as it was a solid 10-15 degrees cooler down there than on the main level. It was scary how noticeable the difference was. You could feel it right in the middle of the staircase even!

Living without power of any kind basically taught me that I would have never survived on the Oregon Trail during the heat and when women were forced to wear heavy dresses and bonnets. I probably would've died in the first wave! I could deal with no TV. I could deal with no internet, despite wanting to blog and chat with everyone in this greatly reduced blogosphere. I still love it despite hearing all the echoes! But what I really couldn't deal with was not having the light to read! I was trying to conserve the flashlight for necessary times. I did try reading one night with the flashlight but that started getting warm and was hard to place it so it was useful and didn't overheat my overheated skin.

This happened another summer years ago, the power was out for days. It was dreadful. I can't remember how long that lasted or what I did to not fry. Luckily, this time around I took refuge in the basement and it was bearable. I also had a battery operated fan to keep on me through the night. Definitely need to buy another one of those since the one I used was my mom's from her last hospital visit.

So yeah, what I learned is that I would not have done well on the Oregon Trail basically! Lol! There are so many things you don't realize you miss when you have no power. AC, lights, being able to cook food and such. There were so many times when you think before you step into that super dark room to reach for the light switch only to have the daunting reminder of the power outage when you flick the switch. It was very much a Homer Simpson D'OH moment! Like when I thought I'd just open the garage and leave...

It just becomes more apparent to me how much we rely on technology and electricity as times move on. I mean when the power did come back, it took awhile to get everything back up and running. Like the thermostat was most uncooperative at first. All these new appliances run on WiFi...for the most part everything came up normally. Of course out of all the TVs we have, my Fire Stick decided it was time to die. So that wasn't the greatest either. Not that I am a TV addict anymore, but it's nice to have for background noise and nonsense when I'm too tired to read or it's too late or dark when there's no electricity to read by! 

So many revelations come to you when the power goes out and you're sweating it out in the basement.

 

But the power is back and I am hoping it stays that way for the foreseeable future.