Not Fun, Just Thought-Provoking

Where to begin?  My power went out this morning at 8:30am. Ironically, I had asked Geoff yesterday if he had remembered to pay it and he informed that he had.  So I called the company just to see and turns out it was the whole town.  So fine - it only lasted twenty minutes or so.  Hunter did not do well with it however.

Have you ever tried to explain a power outage to a three year old?  Well they don't quite get it; especially if you had just put Diego on because that's what he'd asked for.  He was really mad.  Eventually I recalled that the laptop had been plugged in all night and I could probably use that.  Here's something you probably never think about - wireless internet: it's reliant on power.  So there was no Netflix and therefore no Diego.  I managed to get him to pick an actual disk and everything was set.  I also knew that since it wasn't a horrible day out, we could head to the park as well if things stayed off for a while.  Turns out though, I am ill-prepared for an apocalypse of any kind.

As I mentioned, the power was back on in less than a half hour but a lot of things were going through my head during that time: fridge contents, freezer contents; there wouldn't be hot water for all that long.. little things like that.  To the best of my knowledge, we still need to get more propane for the BBQ too so I would have been S.O.L. for the day had I needed it.  Now it's not that I think there's really going to be an apocalypse but this experience made me aware of the fact that I'm not prepared for a daytime emergency situation. 

I think most people have a night-time emergency kit, the candles, flashlights etc., and a car emergency kit for winter driving (in Canada anyway) but do you have a daytime emergency preparedness plan?  I don't!  My fail safe is literally "Go to Nana's or Grandma's house".  I suppose since I still have that choice, it will likely remain my go-to.  Another thing you probably only think about when the power is out is that your cordless phones don't work either.  I used to have an old handset that I kept just in case because it must have happened once and I knew I needed it.  Sure I have the cell but I don't use that much for talking...

All in all, there was not much fun today and the afternoon was spent riding the kids' butts on their chores and homework and studying, but all ended well eventually.  So consider this a public service announcement to think about what you would need to have if you happened to be without power and little ones at home during the day - it's a completely different kit from the other ones.  Cheers :)