The Lights Are Off, And Everybody's Home

The doorbell rang at quarter to five this morning. The persistent humming from the hard drive of the Tivo in our bedroom was reassuring. These were the sounds that helped me get back to sleep. For about two hours before that, I lay awake, listening to nothing. I pressed myself to the bed, straining to pick up the faintest noise.
My wife stirred as well - at first. She has the distinction of sleeping through earthquakes. This is not hyperbole. It is an established fact. When the power went out before dawn, she suggested that I relax and imagine that I was "at the cabin." I appreciated this notion. She wanted me to return to a place of tranquility and calm, a place with no electricity, phones, or hard drives. Outside I could hear the rain. I could hear cars pass by into the distance. I could hear the steady pendulums of the grandfather clock in the living room, and the fainter but reliant cuckoo clock in the kitchen. Then I started to fill my mind with all the things I couldn't hear.
I couldn't hear the hum of the refrigerator. I couldn't hear faint electric hum that all houses have in the civilized world. I was going to have to reset the clock in my son's room. And the one on the microwave. I wouldn't have to change the clock radio next to our bed, but I would have to fret about the possibility that the automatic reset function on it didn't work.
What if the power didn't come back until much later in the day? How would I watch sports on television? How would I watch anything on television? If I wanted to read, would there be enough light? If there wasn't enough light, did we have candles after we burned one to celebrate the elections? What if there was an earthquake now, and I couldn't get the lights on to find our earthquake supplies? Was that a mouse I just heard?
When the power surged back on, I was filled with the warmth and security of a twenty-first century lame-oid man. I drifted off to sleep with the sound of Tivo, ever vigilant, watching reruns of "Newsradio" for me. Now with all the racket back in my life, I could finally relax.