What to do? What to do?

Today while putting away recently purchased groceries, my electricity went off. Poof! Gone! One minute the light inside my refrigerator was burning bright. The next it was pitch black inside there and I was wondering what was up.

Immediately beeping noises, each at different intervals, began making noise throughout my house. All of our major appliances such as computers and televisions are attached to back up battery packs and they alert us with incessant beeping to let us know when there is a power failure.

Because standing in the dark isn't a big enough clue.

I went outside as if all my neighbors would be waiting there to discuss the situation. No one was in sight so I hiked through the itchy grass to my next-door neighbor. He wasn't there and his dog, Penny, wouldn't stop barking long enough to hear me ask her if her power was out.

I continued on to the next neighbor whose dog joined Penny in the barking. Eventually, my neighbor came to the door. When asked if she had any electricity, she leaned inside the door and flipped her light switch. Nothing happened. We agreed to both call the power company and bombard them with inquires.

I trooped back home, picked up my cordless phone and headed into the office to look up the number to the power company on my computer. Oops.

What was I thinking? For a minute I was stumped. How would I find the number to the power company if my computer wasn't accessible?

Then I remembered that years ago we used to look up phone numbers in a free book that was delivered to our door called the phone book. Duh.

I found the phone book and the number, and then I tried to dial it. Nothing happened.

Oh, yeah. No electricity meant no power to my landline. I called from my cell phone and got through to the company's computer-generated voice who assured me it was a problem in my neighborhood and not a delinquent payment. Uh-huh.

I was instructed to push this number and type in that number and while punching in said numbers and listening to the beep, beep, beeping of the computer accessing accounts, my cell phone died. I had not charged it last night and apparently the phone chat I had this morning killed the rest of what battery I did have. Now, it was totally useless. D-E-A-D dead.

I was hopeful that I wouldn't need to get a hold of anyone since all the numbers of everyone I know are buried either in that cell phone or on my computer.

I sat and wondered what in the world I was going to do. I had not had my morning coffee nor breakfast. I had bought some croissants that morning and had envisioned a leisurely breakfast of warm croissants with cream cheese and peppermint coffee. I had planned on eating and then on packing for my weekend visit to Disney.

Now, I couldn't even complete that simple task because my travel list was on the computer. I couldn't harvest my crops. I looked to my right and spotted the pile of library books I had gotten yesterday. 

Ah. I could read using the sun shining into my windows as my light. Instead, I ate a cold croissant, drank some water, and sat down at my desk to write in freehand a list of the things I should do and have to better prepare myself for when the power is out next time.