THINGS I NOTICED DURING HURRICANE IRENE
-People suddenly become experts on how electricity works.
Sitting through an intense storm and praying that your power doesn’t get knocked out is like watching the scene in Rocky IV where Apollo Creed gets murdered into early retirement. You don’t want it to happen, but recognize the inevitability. I like to suffer through these situations alone, because if I’m with anyone else, regardless of who it is, they will invariably begin to analyze every single lamp flicker as if they’re James Fucking Doohan on the Starship Enterprise giving a damage report. This past weekend, during the storm, I lost power for about 45 seconds. The person sitting next to me said, “The grid was probably resetting itself.” As if in the half-minute blackout, he’d accessed his vast knowledge of the Dominion Power network and after a quick diagnoses determined that ‘the grid reset itself’ was the only explanation. Power grids don’t reset themselves. And if they did, what are the odds that an entire city power grid turned itself off, rebooted, and restored power to all of its circuits in less than a minute? Yea, you’re right, that’s way more likely than a branch hitting a power line and momentarily interrupting the current.
-If you don’t prepare for a hurricane like the end of days, people will treat you like an idiot.
I told my friend that I hadn’t bought any bottled water the night before Irene was about to hit, and he looked at me like I was a two year old trying to write my name in my own diarrhea and spelling it wrong. He then delivered a mini-lecture about how Irene wasn’t like any of those “baby” hurricanes I was used to, despite the fact that I’ve lived in the area just as long as him and consequently have experienced every single hurricane that he has. I understand it’s better to err on the side of over-preparedness, but I didn’t feel like trying to fight through the crowds of people at Food Lion buying twelve dozen batteries and boxed wine. I got water the next morning, and I didn’t even need to open it. So, condescending friend who will remain nameless, you can suck a fart out of my butthole.
