The Sad, Sad State of Modern Man

Last night, horror of all horrors, our electricity went out. At the time I was on the computer browsing http://thepioneerwoman.com/, and my siblings were upstairs with their guests playing on the Wii. Dad, Mom, and Bear were at the NEX. I was just enjoying a cookie and a good post when all the lights went out. Naturally I yelled "Hey!! I'm still down here! ... Abi? Isaac?" They were yelling angrily about their Wii game being interrupted. And then realization dawned. Power outage. I noticed I was the oldest one here; I needed to take charge and lead the search for a flashlight! No, our family is not prepared for times like these and flashlights are scattered randomly around the house. My first act as OAL (oldest available Lopez) was to tell everyone to calm down, "Let's all just take a deep breath and find a-AH!" My brother had found a flashlight. And was shining it in my face. "Oh, nicely done Isaac." The next 10-15 minutes were spent milling about in a tightly packed group looking for more instruments of light. I heard the questions: "Where's Mom and Dad?" "Micaiah, where's Mr. and Mrs. Lopez?" "Ah! where's Riley?!(our dog)" over and over again. "Mom, Dad and Bear went on a walk. Riley's probably still asleep downstairs on his bed unless our ruckus has woken him up." "When's Mom and Dad going to get back?!" Oh yeah! My cell phone still works, right? Right. Haha! I called my parents as they were coming around the corner to our house. My dad answered with, "Hey, it sounds dark there..." "You're standing right outside aren't you?" "Yes." "See you in a minute." No, I didn't catch the whole sounds dark....I was distracted.... Soon we had at least twenty candles burning, the kids were outside running around and I was sitting on the back porch with my parents. My Mom and Dad were discussing plans for the next couple of weeks when my grandma is in town. I was thinking of all the things I could be doing right now. Like browsing Pioneer Woman posts on the computer, reading Gulliver's Travels for Omnibus, watching a movie, eating popcorn, sewing, drawing, writing....the list goes on and on. Then my Dad interrupted my grumbling, "You know what we could do? We could grab the laptop and watch the chase scene of the Bourne Identity. The only problem with that is the Bourne Identity is stuck in the DVD player." "It's ok Dad, it was a good idea .... Why don't you and Mom just reenact it for me?" Mom laughs. Silence. "You could plug the battery thing into the van, plug the DVD player into that, eject the DVD, and then watch the chase scene of the Bourne Identity." "It's ok, really Dad. If you want me to see it that bad you go ahead and do that." Mom laughs again. Silence...again. "No, I just needed to know that there was a solution." "Ok." It sucks how much we depend on electricity. I had to suffer the night away with no central cooling! Do you know what that does to me?! I was not able to snuggle under my comforter for fear of suffocation. I know how spoiled that sounds, but I am a central cooling kinda gal. There was a really loud dog yapping right outside my open window. I don't do well with headaches at around 11 pm. Good thing there wasn't a heavy missile-type object lying around my room or that dog would be the one with the headache. But! Everything is good now! Our electricity decided to come back around midnight. I woke up with my windows closed, my fan on high and my bare feet frozen. Central cooling, don't you ever leave me again!
~RM