coolenough2's blog post - power struggles

The power first went out late Monday/early Tuesday, close to midnight. It came back on almost immediately. Freaked me the fuck out regardless. But I went to sleep shortly afterward. Apparently, the power went out again while I slept, because I was awoken by the power coming back on around 5 a.m.

I couldn't get back to sleep for some reason. I cut on the TV, and ESPN had a women's world cup match, U.S. vs. North Korea (I think it was north) so I decided to watch it. It was raining wherever the hell they were, and the women were not looking so great. They're tough, for sure, though. One got a cut on her head and, according to a story I read, literally ran to the locker room to get stitches, and then cussed at the person giving her stitches to hurry the fuck up so she could get back in the game and kick some more Korean ass in the rain. These are not women you would want to fuck with, is what I'm saying.

So the power goes out again. This time it doesn't bounce back. It just stays off. I called the power company and apparently it was caused by a car wreck. It will be about two hours before it's back on. OK. Sigh. All right then. I decided to get some breakfast at a nearby restaurant.

I came back and eventually the power came back on. All was well. I had a nap and went to work and so on. It rained a good bit, and there was lightning, but I thought nothing of it.

As I was coming home from work, about 1 a.m., everything seemed normal. But as I reached the top of the hill that leads from my workplace to the area where I live, a vast expanse of darkness rose up, a cavernous maw of foreboding, fog hovering over the ground. It was about to swallow me up, and I drove into the darkness, and it was like I was no longer in the place I had just occupied, but in some nightmare world. The darkness consumed everything. There was no light on the horizon. The only light came from my headlights, which I noted seemed quite paltry. The power was out yet again.

I decided to go to a nearby bar, because I couldn't stand the idea of sitting around in a dark house. Eventually there were lights and signs of civilization.

I hung out at the bar drinking beer and listened to some very drunk people have what must have seemed to them to be very stimulating conversation.

I was about to leave when two couples walked in: one in their very early 20s and another in their early to mid forties. The older couple consisted of a trailer park version of Robert DeNiro and an aging bar slut who let her figure go but was still playing the game.

The young couple consisted of a somewhat tall, round-faced guy, the kind of guy who always seems about to smile, laugh or tell a joke. He was in a hockey-style shirt and a baseball cap. With him was a ridiculously pretty, tan brunette dressed in short shorts with long, lean legs and a pert, sexy ass. That one didn't have a care in the world. The men in her life no doubt adore her without exception, and she is too young and too pampered to have tasted the bitterness that life can dole out. She was quite a sight in that dive bar filled with old rednecks ranting about the Confederacy, younger guys calling people motherfuckers because they're drunk and drunk women at turns flirting and yelling at men for being such assholes. That girl was a diamond in the rough, although it turns out she may be a gold digger.

The young guy with the round face was talking to Bobby DeNiro as I cashed out. That bar is kind of depressing and I couldn't take it much more. As I settled up I overheard "no, no the slider ..." a baseball term. I started listening, because that sounded a little different from the usual bar talk. I heard "Don't get me wrong, I have a 92, 93 mile per hour fastball, but ..." As I was walking out the door, I realized who the young guy was. A pitcher on the minor league team here in town. Once I thought about it, I recognized that round face. He's their best pitcher, and will most likely pitch on the major league level (hence the girlfriend possibly being a gold digger). The team starts playing for a championship tomorrow. I thought about going back in and saying to him, "I hope you're not pitching tomorrow," but I let it go.

I came back home and the power was on.