The intention last night was to write a post about the beauty of having a car (see New Wheels) with actual functioning air conditioning.

Ironically, Amy called while the new car was on the way to delivering (after a long day at work) the frazzled frame of a man they call Scott to his home, advising that the power at the house had gone and left for greener pastures.

That is there was a blackout.

Shite posting capabilities and the air conditioning in my home was severely lacking for the entire evening (or anything else electrical for that matter).

However, I am getting ahead of myself.

The Dickhead Chevrolet Blazer

Since totaling my BMW 7 series in a stupid accident, I have been driving our backup car: an old Chevrolet Blazer, while we dealt with insurance and arranged to buy a new car which almost literally fell into our laps.

The problems with the Blazer are many and sundry (my nickname for this vehicle has for a long time been “Dickhead,” and for good reason).

Being a commuter in Texas, especially with the summer that we Texans have been experiencing this year: the largest complaint I had was the non-functioning air conditioning.

When it is in the high nineties outside and you are driving home in a car that a) has no air conditioning, and b) has been sitting out in that heat all day, I think there is a justifiable reason to start hating its metallic guts.

Not to mention that I would come home every evening one stroppy Scott English.

Oh and do not let me forget the rain. The hot, humid, downpours of “I can’t see ten feet in front of me” rain that seemed to time it exactly to when I was on the road again. No way to stop the interior of the windshield from fogging up other than to wind down the windows resulted in not only a stroppy Scott English, but a sopping one as well.

Moreover, boy was it a pleasure to drive its damp ass the next day.

The Angelic BMW 528i

I hope now that you can imagine the glory of driving home, not only a car with air conditioning, but one without the other many and sundry problems.

It is pure and utter bliss.

Whereas the Blazer may have taken off a couple of years of my life, I feel like the BMW 528 is giving them back to me. I may even live a tad longer now. The ride is smooth, calm, relaxing, and most importantly: pleasantly cool.

I love love love it! It is like driving on a cloud of air-conditioned bliss.

The Dickhead Chevrolet Blazer Of Household Air Conditioning

I arrive last night. There is indeed no power. According to my wife’s note and her conversation, the ETA for restoring of power is thirty minutes away.
I putter around waiting.

I putter some more.

And some more.

Amy gets home: no power. I am thinking that it is starting to get hot in the house but its hot and humid outside so opening the windows is not going to do anything other than aggravate the situation.

I have grabbed my stock of three coldish beers out of the fridge. Soon they are gone.

Out of habit, we walk around the house trying to turn on lights as we go into rooms and start making a joke out of it: “The light in the closet isn’t working,” one of us hollers. “The bathroom light is not working either,” the other yells in confirmation some time later. “Yep, seems like it’s not working,” shouts the first later still.

Its amazing how ingrained turning the light switch on is when we walk into a dark room, even though we know full well that the little click is going to do nothing but that little click.

We called the power company for an update on the ETA, and found it was conveniently now 11 freaking pm that evening. We are both getting hungry, and even if we were to risk opening the fridge (letting out whatever cold air might still be trapped in there) to get out the leftovers for something to eat, there would be no way of heating them up. I contemplated creating a fire in the back yard, but everything was soaking wet from the storm that caused the blackout in the first place.

We go out for dinner. When we return there is still now damn electricity. So we buck up, go to the gas station and get some cold beer and some ice (ok, that was mainly my doing), and then we settle in for what is probably going to be a long and uncomfortable and getting-hotter-but-still-not-as-hot-as-outside night trying to get to sleep.

I stubbed my toe.

It hurt like a mofo.

While I was laying on the futon trying to read (first with the illumination of nightlight with a battery on its last legs, and then (briefly), with the nauseating flickering of a candle), I pondered how dependant we had become on the presence of electricity in our lives in order for us to function even at a basic level. It was quite an uncomfortable line of inquiry, so I promptly discarded it and went to sleep.

This is after all, the 21st century.

Thanks for stopping by, and remember that the Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun.

PS: For all those of you concerned, the power was restored at 5am the next morning, a mere 10 hours or so later, and only 9 hours later than the original estimate. I wish I could upgrade to the BMW of power companies