1385 Powerless

Recently, when the power went out, it was interesting to see all the little cultural things revealed while we were in the dark. The unusual thing about this power outage was it wasn’t universal. You could drive around town and there would be pockets of full-powered America, and then in a couple of blocks you’d be in the third world again.
People were pretty conscientious about driving cautiously. And intersections with dead traffic lights were treated as four-way stops on a fairly consistent basis. Only a few oblivioids screwed up, and when they did, they were treated to a chorus of honks from feisty frustrated motorists.
But still, it was amazingly civil, only complicated by the aforementioned sometimes on/sometimes off power blocks. You couldn’t settle in to one traffic pattern or another, and would occasionally forget.
I hate it when people honk at my car even when I don’t have a “Honk if you love Jesus” sticker on it.
The other thing I noticed was that where there was power, the drive-through latte stands had cars lined up for half a block. Power outages bring on major coffee crises. Living without all our power crutches is difficult anyhow, add being deprived of you daily coffee fix and watch out.
But there were technological compensations—sort of. One good thing was I didn’t need to grope for a rarely-used flashlight. I had the LED on my cellphone.
Still, when the power first went out at my house, all went blissfully silent. Then this really annoying beeping started. I finally traced it down. It was the backup battery powerstrip thingy on my computer. I’m glad it beeped to tell me the power was out. I may not have noticed otherwise—what with the pitch-blackness and all.
I’m just glad it didn’t honk.
America, ya gotta love it.