Power's Out... Again

Power outages happen here... a lot. Some times one can go a few weeks and not experience any outages. Other times you have frequent outages lasting a few minutes to hours or even days. It's not too bad when the weather is rainy and "cool", but often it's sunny and hot. You sweat. You lay flat on the cool tile floor, and just hope that the power will return soon. 

I have "rules" for power outages that happen at night or in a store that I try to abide by. 

Rule #1- I stop moving. I just freeze right where I am. I'm not going to run the risk of bumping into someone or something during a power outage at night. Dark is *really* dark when there are no lights. 

Rule #2- Announce to Kate where I am, tell her to stop moving, and reassure her that we're still here. (She hasn't panicked before, so this is rule is a keeper.) We added the stop moving part after during a power outage she took off running full speed ahead in whatever direction she was facing and ran straight into the kitchen cabinets, knocking her over. She's a tough cookie and brushed it off. 

Rule #3- I allow someone else to get the flashlights. At our house Josh has excellent night vision, which allows him to safely, quickly, and confidently make his way to the nearest flashlights. If Josh isn't around and a power outage happens at the store, then I just wait until the store's generator turns on. 

Last month at the grocery store, the electricity went out (not unusual) but the generator had issues re-setting. The gen-set turned on, but then quickly went out again. So I followed rules 1 and 2 and was waiting like rule 3 says to do, but it did not return. So I brought my phone out and clicked on the flashlight, and honestly waited for an employee to come around asking me to leave- where did I think I was??  No employees came to me, so we continued to shop. 

This grocery store is creepy when it's dark. I mean even with electricity there are things that I have to choose to avoid looking at- like the rat that walked across the cross beam above my head, or the moldy tops of the bell peppers, or the fruit flies swarming around the rotting avocados... but with no electricity it's even worse. 

Also, just a heads up, the place to weigh your produce so you know what to pay at the register doesn't work when there's no power. OH and also... the registers don't work either.... sometimes. 

So, you may never leave this grocery store if the power goes out. You might be stuck in the store with others who are stuck and are shopping by cellphone flashlight fooooorevvvvver....