UNITED STATES—You don’t realize the good that you have until you don’t have it. Recent bad weather in my region caused me to lose electricity for over 48 hours. Yes, it is not fun, not at all. I think the longest I can recall NOT having electricity was back when I was like 11 or 12 and a tornado struck my region and caused massive damage. So, I have lived without electricity, but at the time internet was not a thing, social media didn’t exist, and we didn’t have streaming either.
So going without power for that 2-day period was brutal. For starters, the weather was scorching hot. Which meant there was no ceiling fan, no air conditioning or breeze to cool down. I couldn’t entertain myself with TV because you cannot watch without electricity. No music people and the thing that drove me crazy was not having internet.
I didn’t think I was that reliant on the internet, but apparently, I am. I use it more frequently during my day, when I have down time, than I expected. I like being able to check my email, I like being able to check social media here and there, I like to see what breaking news is going on and not having internet impacts my ability to work as well.
So, emails could not be checked, I couldn’t scour social media and I also found myself trying to find things to do to keep busy. You know what came to the top of the list: cleaning. You might say how did you clean with no electricity? The old-fashioned way with a bucket, hot water, cleaning supplies and a broom, like my parents and grandparents did back in the day.
For those thinking, I’ll tell you right now, I did all my cleaning during the daytime when I had ample sunlight shining through the home. We still had water; it was not as hot because with the power being out the water tank couldn’t heat up the water. The one good caveat was having a gas stove, so I could use it to cook if needed. I prefer not to do that because you need a lighter or match to strike to ignite the stove and I just don’t like the idea of gas seeking in the home.
So restaurants were lucky as takeout was how I ate, as well as delivery. Besides cleaning, there was nothing else I could do. I did review my finances and balance budgets with a bit of free time to pass the time. However, the night was the worse because even with flashlights and candles, when you have no electricity, it is pitch black at night, I mean your eyes cannot see anything in front of you, which is beyond scary. That notion of pitch black some people don’t really get it until they have to experience it, and you’re using your hands to feel around a room to ensure that you don’t collide or stumble into something.
The one thing that annoys me more than anything when you lose power is the food that you have stored in the refrigerator and the freezer. Power companies don’t seem to care much about that. I lost milk that I just purchased, butter, fruits, veggies, lunchmeat, proteins and a ton of frozen items that spoiled or were not safe to eat because the power was out too long. So what am I to do? Not much I could do, I had to take a loss in food that was purchased. Oh, I know what you’re thinking, what about the electric company? Would they provide a voucher? Yeah, for like $35! What the hell is that going to do?
I can’t purchase pretty much anything with that, I guess these utility companies have not been to the grocery store lately to see the price of food? It is an absolute insult to the consumer, and the utility companies have to do much better. The consumers are already being robbed with the prices they pay and it’s like, oh well, you just have to deal with it, and I’m sorry that is not enough for the prices that for utilities whether its electricity, gas, internet, landline, cable to something else.
I didn’t even mention I couldn’t use any of my gadgets. No computer, no tablet and my cellphone, as much as I hate it sometimes, my battery was completely drained. I went an entirely 24 hours without being able to use my phone because I could not charge it. I did try to use it to surf the internet, but when you have a power outage that impacts your internet provider it also impacts the phone, which I discovered right away. The biggest thing I learned the past week is to appreciate what I have because when you lose power or something that you have become so reliant on it’s not a good feeling at all. You learn to adapt, but that adaptation is not always easy.
Written By Jason Jones
