Lights Out!

During dinner the lights flickered for a second. I was immediately flooded with exciting thoughts of - oh, what if the power goes out??. It’s probably been 10 years since that was even a possibility. I glanced at my dinner companions, Joe & Lindsea, who where sporting the same glimmer in their eyes. We made a quick few musings over the idea of a power outage and then went back to discussing the internet or something.

Then 10 minutes later there was a subtle click and we were cloaked dark silence. It really went out. Now I couldn’t even see the spicy things in my curry. And, my rice to curry ratio was getting all askew. Joe scurried outside and it appeared the whole block was out. Phones begin to light up the tables. Candles were slowly distributed by the wait staff. We giggle with excitement about iPhone/candle lit dinner and how this should happen more frequently. I guess at this time we hadn’t considered the possibility this blackout might stick around longer than was cute.

Continued...
We get word from the other tables that this outage is island wide. Which isn’t that surprising because I’m sure the whole island is one grid, but we do realize it’s probably time to leave the restaurant. They figure out how to charge my credit card and we’re out off into the world. We step out to a cityscape that is completely black. Buildings outlined by moon and a few emergence backup lights, there is an eerie quality to the town. And that’s when I remember another thing that stops functions during an outage - traffic lights!

Yet, the people of Oahu seemed to be doing a very good job of self-managing the intersections. What was nice about this little emergency was it really brought out the best in people. Everyone we talked to was sparked with excitement combined with a we’ll get through this just fine attitude. Twitter was a flutter with updates and already there was a hashtag (#hipower) about the incident. Its a good thing we didn’t have to see if that attitude would last longer than the night.

The night’s next thing on the agenda was beer. But everything was closed! 7-11 wouldn’t even open the doors for cash. We were outside and the clerks were in there with the lights on pretending they couldn’t see us clamoring for beer. And, I know when people do this at my store I ignore them and wonder why they can’t figured we’re closed. But now this is different. I mean I need beer!

Thankfully the amazing 24hr Safeway was open. We got our own personal employee escort to direct us to the beer aisle and headed back to my place. Joe’s computer had a few hours of battery and the remainder of the night was spent with Flight of the Concords, beer, and late night quesadillas (thankyouverymuch gas stove!).