Not winter wonderland

When the water is hot, I will have a shower, my first since Wednesday. Later, I will cook all the thawed vegetables in the freezer and boil several chicken thighs and brown 2 1/ 2 pounds of hamburger and cook a lot of rice and combine it all for dog food. Things in the freezer are not frozen, and meat bought Wednesday is on the edge of not fit for human-type people.

Electricity went out around 11 p.m. Dec. 25, returned at 2 p.m. Dec. 26, left again at 11 a.m. Dec. 27 and returned just before 11 a.m. today. A neighbor stopped by Thursday morning and said our cul de sac of seven houses is on a separate grid and does not have any kind of priority for reconnection.

If not for the fireplace and a lot of wood, we would have been very cold and probably forced to spend most of the week at a hotel. As it was, things were bearable, but not by much.

I considered lining several boxes and emptying refrigerator and freezer contents into the boxes and mailing it all to the president of Entergy, as an example of what happens when company crews leave a section of customers without power for all or parts of six days. The company probably would say loss of electricity is an act of God, but that is an empty argument. An ice storm falls within God’s purview, but God did not make the electricity, nor deny my access to the power because of downed lines. Entergy, not God, failed to check all power lines for overhanging tree limbs or trees likely to fall across lines. God did not return power for 15 hours and then take it away again for almost four days. God did not place my neighborhood in a low priority for repair.

Here is a truth: Houses within 200 feet of mine had power returned on Dec. 27, for good.

Yesterday, my wife, my youngest son, his wife and his daughter drove 140 miles to my mother-in-law’s, to visit and exchange gifts and to take showers. My wife went first. She noticed the shower did not drain properly. She told Casey. He got a plunger, but when attempting to dislodge the clog, instead pulled up brown water and all it entails. That was just after noon. Sometime around 6 p.m., a plumber arrived and ran a device down the line and cut roots that clogged the pipe. We drove the 140 miles back home, having had a good visit but only one shower. With three dogs in the house since 9 a.m., we did not stay longer and have more showers.

People say you appreciate a thing when you have to do without it for a time. Here is what I know: My house was cold for several days. We could not cook. We could not bathe. We were cold. And there were the lesser things – no internet or TV. Do I appreciate electricity more now? No.

Here also I know: I will consult an electrician and determine what size generator I should buy. Also, I will buy a drip coffee pot or a boil-on- the-fire coffee pot and maybe a set of cast iron utensils to use on the propane grill.

We will not be caught in this sort of thing again.