Darkness Falls, Semi-Literally

On the first day I moved into my apartment (the first-first day, not the second-first day), Mom and I arranged to meet my landlord for the key at 10 a.m. At 9:45 we arrived on my doorstep, digital camera and Madeleine’s café lattes in hand. We took turns posing by the mailbox; brushed premature fall leaves off the sill; and, finally, sat to wait. We waited. And waited. August in New Orleans does not provide good waiting weather. At 10:30 we tossed our coffee dregs into the shubs and called my landlord. No answer. We rearranged ourselves on the steps, listened to the mating calls of lawnmowers. You know that saying, “Southern girls don’t sweat...they mist”? Chuck it in your box of grossly misleading adages -- along with “A taste of honey is worse than none at all” and “The early bird gets the worm.” (“This is true,” Qi told me during our 9:30 Developmental class, “but one could also say the early worm gets eaten by the bird.”) Our damp fingers left smearprints on the camera lens. My thighs glued to the brick steps like militant protestors. “Hell no,” they said. “We won’t go.” But it’s almost lunchtime...

11:30, he showed up. “All ready to take a look inside?” Too dehydrated to tell him how ready we were -- how ready we’d been for over an hour -- we nodded. My landlord flicked on the air conditioning, demonstrated the gas stove, and left. I suspect he went back to bed. I haven’t seen him since.

But yesterday I got a note on my mailbox. I’d just returned from administering an IQ test in Kenner. The process of IQ testing -- or the process of me giving an IQ test -- is perhaps worthy of another post. For now, I’ll say it’s long (4 hours, usually) and thus tiring, both for examiner and unsuspecting examinee. I was ready for a beer and a nap, not necessarily in that order. First, the note: “Earlier this afternoon, a tree trimming service knocked out the main power supply to this unit. Entergy has been contacted, and an electrician will perform repairs. You can expect service today, Sunday, or Monday at the latest. Best wishes.”

Oh no. No, no, no. As I climbed the flight to my door, I imagined myself in one of those 1950s horror films. “Don’t go in there! No, don’t! Don’t turn the....” Inside: total darkness. Heat. Worst of all…silence. No reassuring refrigetator hum. No click-click-click from the rusty overhead fan. No creaking and slamming of AIM’s electronic doors. I set down my bag of IQ manuals, unshouldered a tangle of videotaping equipment, and went to bed. It was 2:30 p.m.

Considering my locale, there’s no tactful way for me to describe my attitude toward powerlessness. If I complain that the power loss is inconvenient (which it is), someone will point out that, for God’s sake, most people in this town lost their homes. You want to gripe about a few days without the Bravo channel? If I say the power outage is strangely comforting (which it is, in the “back to basics” sort of way), someone will accuse me of slumming. Like those celebrities who claim to “understand the plight of the African people” after taking a safari.

So, all I’ll say is: I’m glad I can use the Dells in my advisor’s lab. Because I expect I’ll be living in the dark until Friday. Thursday at the earliest.

As a kind of epilogue (or perhaps a prologue), I'll also tell you what I did after I woke up. Dutifully, I rescued a lone Smirnoff from the fridge, delivered it to the light of the porch, and consumed it in four still-cold gulps. "Have you seen the electrician?" my downstairs neighbors shouted from their door. "Not yet!" "You should've seen the tree branch fall...it was incredible!" Apparently, my neighbors were home when the arboreal shiznit went down. "There was this intense crash, and a fire right outside our door. We put it out with our feet!"

Now that would have made a good post.