Down, out, finished

We live in a world where convenience is at every hand. We call, we Twitter and Facebook and e-mail. Lights come on at the touch of a switch. Water is available at the twist of a faucet.

Until it's not.

Yesterday, I had no internet for about twenty-four hours. I wasn't the only one. There are conflicting reports as usual, but at least my area code was down. From other people I heard the outage was more wide-spread than that. The powers that be aren't really discussing the extent of the outage. Naturally.

Today, my apartment complex is shutting off the water. Today and tomorrow. It seems there's a water main break within the community that has to be fixed. In theory the plan is to shut it down from 9 AM to 6 PM. Why? Because people will be gone to work. Except for those who don't go to work. Or have little kids. Or work a different shift.

The hunk is filling the bathtub so we can flush. We've taken care of our morning routine. Breakfast is almost finished. And then we'll settle in for the day.

There's an odd phenomena that kicks in when something isn't working. Even though you might not need the particular utility immediately, your brain knows something isn't right so your whole being takes on a waiting attitude. Restlessness sets in. You can't quite settle down because whatever is wrong subliminally disturbs you.

And then when it all finally goes back to normal it takes a little bit to settle back into life. I think an outage of whatever (water, electricity, internet) is a faint warning that the conveniences of modern life are fragile and not to be depended on. It takes very little for them to be gone.

How will we cope then?

anny