Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Time Travel, Back to the Nineteenth Century

We all enjoy our modern conveniences without a thought to living without them. As a person who has lived in southern California, all of his life I have never suffered through an ice storm, if fact I'm not sure I know what an ice storm is. Although we're not known for severe here we do get some high winds every year in the fall. During one period of heavy winds where whole neighborhoods were losing power I had a tree fall over and pull the power line off my house. Our neighborhood has lost power many times and at the time I was unconcerned and sure it would be back soon.

Right about then I heard a crackling sound and looked outside to discover a live wire popping and spitting in my backyard as my dog barked at it. I got him back inside and secure then called the power company. I will say this for them they came right out and cut the power to the line lying in my backyard. However, that is where their assistance stopped, they couldn't just reattach my line, and my meter had been ruined as well. I was told that I would need to replace the meter and then to call them to reattach the power line. I called an electrician and was told that he could have me ready for power again in one day.

What the heck, we could live without power for one day, come on family it'll be like camping, we'll have fun. Begrudgingly they came on board as we cooked on the barbecue and washed our dishes by hand. By night fall we were all getting tired of the camping routine and we all soon found out reading by candlelight is not as easy as it looks in the movies. The next morning, my daughter went to school and the wife to work as I took another day off to wait for the electrician. He came, he saw, he conquered and by noon, we were ready for our precious electricity to be returned to us.

And this was where the infamous other shoe dropped. Oh, I am sorry sir we couldn't possibly get out there today we're too swamped. I was stunned; we'd already gone almost a day and a half without that sweet nectar of modern technology. What do you mean I screamed into the phone, my daughter needs her MTV? Turned out with whole neighborhoods out my single house was bumped to the bottom of the list or as I was told they would get to it when they got to it. They said that if a crew was nearby with a few minutes of time, they would swing by but it could take as long as two weeks before they could get to me.

It turned out our time travel back into the nineteenth century only lasted four days. It is amazing how much of our life is done on autopilot. How many times do you need to turn on a light switch when you go into a room before you remember it doesn't work? Do you know how silly you feel after having no power for two or three days, to come home and prop your feet up, then turn on the TV to nothing?

In reality, we were lucky, although my daughter might not believe me. The weather was mild, not too hot or cold, we had daylight until almost eight every night. Yes, it was mildly inconvenient and I was very happy when we were back in power land. I don't think it was so bad and I like to think I was getting used to it by day four, Oh who am I trying to kid I almost tried to kiss the service man on the mouth when I saw the TV go on.

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