My teen has never brought bacon home, I’ll just get that out the way up front. She did bring me $6 home yesterday though. This was change from a $50 bill I had given her to get some passport photos taken at Walgreens. That costs $15. Where did the rest of the money go, I wondered aloud?
Mom, I had to buy pens for school. And air freshener.
Where did she buy the pens, I wondered aloud. An art store! They are special pens. They are the only pens she can use. And they are for school. And that, as she well knows, is the magic word. School, mom. It’s about my education.
And air freshener? For what air? Why did she have to buy it? And why I am I paying for it? Sometimes the questions just mount up until it is easier to simply say Ok, fine. She’s no fool.
Yesterday there was a big Winter storm happening. Since this is America, and not the Congo, that meant that the power was out. Fairfax Police were kind enough to text us townspeople informing us that the power was out due to falling trees and wires. Also, the creek cam that monitors flood danger for the low-lying areas of our town was only working sporadically due to high demand. Happily my house sits up the hill a little. Many other Fairfaxians are not so lucky.
It was a long night and it was made even longer by repeated reminders of how dependent on electricity we are. Maybe I shouldn’t admit this here, but a while after the power went out, I used a candle to forage for some leftovers in the dark fridge. Then I put them in the microwave and turned it on. Nothing happened!
Power outages also mean that the Internet goes down. I don’t think you need me to spell out what this means on a long winter evening. That funny video about the fake Irish commentator at the Olympic womens’ dinghy event that I wanted to send to a friend? I COULDN’T! The phrase dead in the water was hauntingly appropriate.
Also, for a number of hours I could not check facebook to see how popular I am. Nor could I message my friends in Ireland to impress them with the intensity of the California Winter. The power is out! There are trees down! In Ireland they routinely weather mad Atlantic storms that have travelled thousands of miles specifically to batter the western seaboard senseless. They call it rain, and a bit of an oul’ wind. Ireland came late to the digital age. Every square centimeter of the country is wired. The power routinely went out in the ‘70s when I was a child, but this is the next millennium and it never goes out now.
Hardest of all, I could not read my daily Good News Network stories to counteract the stench emanating from the Oval Office. Young soldier saves driver using hoodie and ballpoint pen. I mean, is that not enough to counteract the shenanigans of Mr. McConnell? Ok, maybe a shade anecdotal. But if you dig a little deeper past the homeless man who saved an NFL player’s car and was made tearful by a gift in return, there are meatier stories. The Tanzanian island of Kokota, laid waste by deforestation so that its 500 villagers had to sail 15 miles to get fresh water, has been completely restored after their neighbors on Pemba helped them plant 300,000 trees. Now we’re talking ballast.
I was in the middle of scanning cheery headlines in my Good News Network summary email when the power came back on. A burst of light and the return of the quite pronounced electric hum you don’t notice in your house till it’s silenced and then comes back on suddenly. It’s a bit frightening, honestly. Sort of like your house has just sustained a giant electric shock. I quickly sent my friend the video about the fake Irish commentator. And I checked Facebook. Not so popular today, apparently. Good thing I still have my teen to reassure me.
Three days ago she texted me while I was at work. She had come home and found the house smelling badly of gas. One of the gas stove knobs was turned on. I thanked her most sincerely for preventing our house from blowing up. So now that the power was back on and I could see, I carried out my cunning plan to tape the knobs in place with duct tape. I have fancy duct tape with a sort of celestial design on it. I think it’s quite cool. She came out of her room a while later. She noticed the duct-taped stove knobs.
Mom. Seriously? That looks really stupid.
It does look a bit weird, but better than the house exploding, no?
Her look said that no, my celestial duct tape was not actually better than the house exploding. Then she commenced annotating a school paper at the kitchen table with her $41 pens. Still waiting for bacon.
No comments:
Post a Comment