The Joys of Power Outages

I remember when I was little on a few occasions during big wind storms in the Alaskan spring, with a sudden flicker the lights in our house would go out, and our world would plunge into darkness. Nothing was more exciting than rummaging through the drawers in the dining room and pulling out every candle and candlestick holder we could find until our house was filled with that soft glow and that waxy spice smell of candles burning. Maybe I have always been a little bit of a romantic, but for some reason I loved it when the power went out. Even today I feel like the proper thing to do by candlelight is to read an old dusty codex with a clay mug of cider nearby. However, I may also attribute some of these romantic notions to the infrequency of power outages in Alaska while I was growing up.

In Bangladesh, the power goes out probably 5 times a day. I haven't kept track, but several times a day the light cuts out, the UPS starts beeping from my dining room, and I wait patiently for the generator to kick in. Somewhere from a few seconds to a few minutes later a churchurchurchur starts from six floors below my apartment, the unmistakable smell of gasoline wafts in through the window, and the lights come back on. This has become such a normal part of the day that I hardly blink an eye when it happens. However, as you can imagine, for certain activities, constant light is absolutely necessary. Cooking is one of these activities. If I'm chopping vegetables, I can simply pause and wait until the lights come back on. However, if I'm making french fries, popping pop corn, or any number of other cookng activities, (probably equally as unhealthy as french fry and popcorn making) the risk of burning whatever I'm working on is infuriating. On a few occasions the risk of burning myself is also in the forefront of my mind.

It's amazing to think of all the things I've taken for granted for so many years of my life. A nearly constant and unwavering supply of electricity is definitely on that list.