Saving Bacon, Annoying Calls From Rita & Morons

RAVE: A friend once said all that lies between civilization and chaos is a light bulb. Well, chaos hit East Greenwich and all of Rhode Island and the rest of this East Coast this past week. I shudder to think what would happen if we had to deal with a real emergency – like an actual hurricane.

We lost power much earlier than expected. I didn’t even get a chance to fill up the tub. I must say, I used to like candles but cooking on the grill by candelabra got old pretty fast. Drinking coffee without milk got even older. I feel sorry for all those people who stocked up on milk and meats and other perishables. Just saying.

All in all, though, everyone behaved remarkably well. But special raves go out to:

• Jay at the Warwick Stop and Shop who quietly took me to the back of the store and loaded up a box of ice from their machine when it transpired that there would not be another delivery for two days. Jay, you saved my bacon!
• Tom Anthes and Joan Spencer. These friends spent enough years in California to know that a generator is a handy thing to have. Guys, you really did save my bacon. Okay, my ground beef!
• The drivers who actually made eye contact at intersections where the lights were out. This old-fashioned F2F interaction certainly saved lives.
• Pa and Ma from Little House on the Prairie who were great inspiration for the kids adjusting to living without the mod cons.
• The National Grid workers on my road on Monday who honestly told me.
• The National Grid workers on my road on Tuesday who correctly told me the power would be restored in three hours.
• All the people who cleared out the chip and pretzel aisles at the supermarkets – these are people who know what it takes to get through a natural disaster.
• The – er – odd coincidence that the name of the hurricane – sorry, tropical storm – is the same as my mother-in-law which, for some reason, just tickled me pink.
• That we are not Virginia, Vermont or North Carolina. My heart goes out to the people who live there.
• The tree that National Grid pruned to death, that I have been asking the town to remove for more than a year, that the town refused to remove because it is half on the town line and half on my property line, that I refused to remove because it was mostly on the town line and anyway, it was healthy until National Grid got their hands on it – well, anyway, it finally fell – and missed my garage and my fence.
• The stupid people doing stupid things during the storm – you’d almost think they were hired by Jackass to provide mindless entertainment for us poor folks stuck in our unlit, unconnected homes. I refer to the dudes who thought it would be rad to surf, windsurf, jog and camp in 135mph winds (yes, all true stories
• That it’s over so we can all stop saying, “Good night, Irene.”

RANT: There are three things you can't do in life. You can't get drivers to slow down on Kenyon Avenue, you can’t eat just one of ’s chocolate covered strawberries and you can’t beat utility companies.

I know that National Grid is working really, really hard to restore power 100 percent to our town. And I get it that it is hard to prioritize which neighborhoods should receive attention first.

But here is what I don’t understand:

• Why did the power go off before Irene had even left New York?
• Why did the Massachusetts president of National Grid head to Hawaii on vacation as Hurricane Irene was moving towards the East Coast (and didn't return until late Tuesday afternoon or bring me any macadamia nuts)?
• Why is National Grid’s customer service so very, very bad? Nothing personal, Rita – whomever you are – I know your job as the voice at the other end of the line telling me what I already know – that I don’t have power – is a thankless one – and probably, you are not even a real person but all the same, dear, if you ever call me again, I will hang up on you. Rather than a call from Rita, wouldn’t NG have done better to have set up free ice and battery stations for those without power for more than 24 hours?
• Why did it seem like National Grid was working in the dark?
• Why are generators so expensive?
• If a tree falls during a hurricane and no one hears it, did it really fall?
• Why do lawmakers keep on cutting funding to bolster our infrastructure?
• Why does mineral water that has "trickled through mountains for centuries" go out of date next year? (This comes from having nothing left to do in the evening but read the water bottle labels!)
• If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
• What, what will we do when – and I do mean when and not if – the wind really hits the fan?