This morning it started to snow heavily and as I was lurching in slow motion toward the window saying, OH. MY. GOD. the power went out. Like, the lights turned off and the heat shut off and worst of all THE TELEVISION STOPPED WORKING.
I immediately called Beth on the old phone in the basement to see if her power was out, too, and it was! Fucking Utah Power! And we joked and not joked about how important the television really is to us, and how in times like these its importance is really driven home, and I realized that if it came down to the world not having television or me cutting off one of my feet I would totally give the world my foot. I love you, world, THAT MUCH.
I always have a television on in the house as background noise. It’s crucial to my sanity to hear human voices during the day, even if those voices aren’t talking to me and are badly acted as in the case of “Days of Our Lives.†This morning when the power went out I felt like someone had punched me in the gut, kidnapped all my friends and then left me in a cold house with a baby who can’t be entertained by any one thing longer than three minutes. And people, we are THIS CLOSE to running out of new things in the house to show her, THIS CLOSE being me thinking twice this morning about getting out the 409 bottle and saying, “Here, Leta. This thing sprays!â€
I had to gather my wits about me and come up with a quick plan: where could we go? We needed to go somewhere in the truck to stay warm and to kill some telveisionless time, but I couldn’t think of anything we needed. We went to the grocery store yesterday, and all my prescriptions are filled, and I can’t show my face at Old Navy ONE MORE TIME or they’re going to think I’m stalking them, WHICH I AM.
And then I remembered! I need moisturizer! And moisturizer requires a car ride to procure! Off to the indoor mall we went where there are horrible stores and horrible window displays full of Things You Don’t Need including black plastic mini-skirts and soaps in the shape of Joseph Smith’s head. Are people really buying those plastic mini-skirts? Because Hot Topic had at least TWO FULL RACKS of them, which means they’re stocking up for the Thanksgiving Plastic Mini Skirt Rush, or no one is buying them, and the last time I checked the Mormons weren’t wearing black plastic anything in public. And I’m sorry, but I’d have a hard time washing my crotch with a soap that was molded to look like a polygamous religious prophet.
I’d neglected to change out of my pajamas, and I was scurrying through the indoor mall with Leta on my hip, my pajama bottoms hanging sadly over the backs of my running shoes. Certainly grounds for divorce. We raced to the only department store in the mall, the only place with those cosmetic counters manned my women whose faces look like they’ve had make-up tattooed on their eyes by a blind surgeon. We found the correct counter and I asked for my brand of moisturizer and then the tattoo make-up lady, obviously surprised that someone so unkempt and still dressed in her pajamas would even know the importance of using mousturizer — so very, very, important, I watch enough Bravo to know this — she said to me, “If you wait until Wednesday to buy this bottle of moisturizer you’ll get a free gift.â€
FREE and GIFT in the same sentence? SIGN ME UP!
Turns out that this snow/sleet/rain storm is sticking around until Thursday. THURSDAY. That’s three days from now, three days that I can’t go on a walk and entertain the baby with the myriad of non-toxic outdoor things she hasn’t yet seen. So I am going to need an excuse to get back into the warm car on Wednesday anyway. Am I a thinker, or what? So we drove all the way to the indoor mall for no reason, and I wasted gas and precious environmental resources, but Wednesday I won’t have to come up with a plan, AND I get a FREE bag with extra eye liner that I will never wear!