Saturday, September 3, 2011

THE FIASCO



i was recently cleaning out my emails that i had left on my aol page to possibly open and use later, and i found this from back in april. i had forgotten i had written it. i had planned on posting it back then, but changed my mind, and just let it sit there in aol pergatory lol. but after re-reading it, i felt it had a place here on blogger, so that the few blogger friends i have left can stop by and enjoy a chuckle at my expense. now that i have jogged my memory, this brings back the day in clear and total recall......and i hope it never ever happens to me again..............

sometimes we all have those days we should stay in bed and pull the cover up over our head and sleep. well, i had 2 days like that. and though i actually did spend a great deal of the time IN BED, it didn't help any.

i know i am not alone when i admit to having to have "white noise" in my room in order to sleep. i currently have 2 fans and 1 room air purifier running while i am sleeping. should the sound cease, i awaken immediately. such is the case at 6:36am tuesday. i looked around the room and it was dark. the silence was deafening. i checked outside and there were no lights visible throughout the area. ok, well, that little spring shower must have been worse than i thought. i crawled back under the cover and tried to go back to sleep without noise breaking the silence. and with the purring of one of the two furbabies in my ear, i drifted off once more.

when i awakened again around 11 am, i looked up the power company's number and called to report on and/or check status of the power situation. they were aware of the problem. there was a really bad storm that went through atlanta and headed west to our location near the state line. thousands and possibly a million or so were without power.

i chanced taking my shower (gas water heater) and prepared to leave for the hospital to see my fiance who has been there for 2 months. as i was leaving, i realized the power garage door wouldn't work, so i had to manually open it. i broke 2 fingernails and squished my middle fingertip trying to close the door, as it does not have any outside handles. i visited my fiance, and knowing the power would more than likely not be on when i returned, i stopped and got a taco salad to take home and eat. when i arrived home, i tried to lift the garage door and it was locked in place. great. i have a key for the back door so i went to unlock that and the regular lock worked fine, but the deadbolt wouldn't budge. i almost broke the key off in the lock and nada. i was almost in tears by now. i called a friend who has a key that i know works on both locks, and he didn't answer. i called for 15 minutes and no response. i called my fiance in the hospital room and asked him to call this friend to see if he responded to him. he told me to break a window. well i wasn't going to do that. i went back to the back door and calmly tried again. nothing. i pushed, kicked and shoved the door in all directions and finally the dead bolt worked. of course my taco salad was broken in a million pieces by now and my nerves were completely frazzled. i sat down to eat and called my fiance to let him know i got in.

about 20 minutes later i went to use the restroom (tinkle only) and flushed. as i was washing my hands, one of the cats went flying out of the restroom and i suddenly heard a cascading waterfall........the toilet was overflowing all over the tiled bathroom floor and out toward the carpeted hallway. i grabbed the 2 towels that were in the restroom and they didn't even start to cover the situation. i went to the hall closet and pulled out some large towels and placed them on the floor to soak up the ocean that had formed. i tried to plunge the bowl and more water spilled over. the high tide in the bowl finally went down but i was still afraid of it. i checked out the other restroom and flushed that toilet and it started to overflow, but stopped right before lapping over the rim. ok, so all the rain must have stopped up the drains or the sewage lines. just to be sure i questioned both furrbabies to make sure neither had put a kitty toy or worse into the bowl. one looked innocent and the other, well, she always looks guilty. either way, i worked on the toilet till i thought i had it fixed. i went to the other restroom first and noticed that the paper i had flushed down the overflowing toilet was now in the other toilet. mmmmmmm, there has to be a problem somewhere. after more work on the original toilet, i flushed again..........here comes the waterfall. i grabbed more towels, and before long, i had every towel in the house (seriously) on the floor, i turned off the waterflow to the toilet and tested it again. it flushed. i ran water back in the tank and went to sit down for a few minutes. i was shaking all over. i felt something wet on my lip and wiped at it and voila..........nose bleed. i am on blood thinners so it poured. i hate the site of blood, especially mine, so i felt faint. after getting that under control, i laid down to calm myself. i fell asleep and awoke when my oldest kitty tore into my arm. more blood. she wasn't aware she did this. she has convulsions/seizures in her sleep and lashes out and grabs on. i got up and by then it was dark. i doctored my arm and found all the candles and lit them to allow light in the house, but what for? i couldn't watch tv, i couldn't access the internet, and i couldn't cook anything, even though food was going bad in the fridge. i went back to bed and slept on and off, freezing to death. i awoke at 5:30 am and still no power. i looked outside, and still no lights anywhere. i got up and ate a bowl of cereal and got dressed. i had to be at the hospital for a home-care training session at 10 am so i went on around 9 am. my cell phone, which is the only connection to the outside world i have at the house, was dying so i plugged it into the hospital bathroom's socket to recharge it and visited with my fiance for a couple of hours, got my training and when they came to give him PT i left. i got almost home when i realized i had left my phone in the bathroom. i turned around and went back. i stayed another hour till my fiance's business partner/friend showed up and i left. this time i got into the house with no trouble lol. but i left the garage door open this time. there was still no power. i called the power company again and they told me it would be sometime before midnight. grrrrrrrrrrrr. all the food in the freezer was dethawed and the fridge was getting cool instead of cold. it had already been 32 hours without power. i was so bored i called my daughter to talk lol. she laughed at me and said i was too melodramatic. she would be too if she was in a strange town where they were having something similar to bike week in florida or nascar in georgia and she knew only a couple of folks and her bf was in the hospital, and all this was happening to her.

the power finally came on at 8:38 pm. 38 hours and 2 minutes. yep, i counted every second. i had tv and computer withdrawals and was bored to death. now i have to wash that mountain high pile of towels. fun fun fun. amazing how we depend so much on technology.

i hope all of you have had a better week so far than i have. my fiance gets to come home friday so that is the one bright spot in this week...................

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2 comments:

Paula said...

I've been thinking about you.

ADB said...

That sounds like 38+ hours from hell, Regina. Hope your fiance is better