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I was jolted out of bed this morning, somewhere between 5:00 and 6:00 am. Loud popping, booms, and flashes of incredibly bright light pierced my sleep and caused me to literally jump out of bed and find myself in the living room just as the electricity was going off. My first frantic thought was - I don't know what time it is, what about my alarm, how am I going to get to work on time?? Of course it didn't register that it was Sunday morning right at that moment. It was dark, it could have been 2:00 am for all I knew - and any day of the week.
I looked outside and couldn't really see anything, so I lit a candle and walked around a bit - got my cell phone and turned it on, things like that. While I was acclimating myself, I heard a car pull up. It was a cop. Then a fire truck pulled up. Nobody banged on my door, there wasn't a lot of noise or people shouting, I figured they were taking care of things, so I could go back to bed. And I did.
I woke up at about 11:00 am and it was getting hot in the house. I looked outside and saw this:
The trees in this neighborhood are very old and the village has been cutting down some of them recently because they were interfering with power lines. God forbid they might start putting the power lines below ground, but I digress.
See anything missing from these pictures? How about - the electric company, the village, anybody who might be able to restore power or remove the tree across that driveway? I called ComEd and they said the fire department had called it in in the morning, they had reported a tree on the power lines but did not report loss of power. WHAT?!??!?! So if the tree was laying across the power lines, and the lines were live, that wouldn't be dangerous???
Anyway, ComEd apologized and said they would send someone out. Apparently none of my neighbors called it in either, all of us secure in the knowledge that the police and fire department had taken care of things.
Pretty soon one guy showed up. He got out of his truck after changing from a tee shirt into a crisp pressed ComEd shirt in the cab - with it unbuttoned and flapping in the breeze, with a hard hat on. He buttoned up as he walked around checking everything out, eventually getting into the bucket and motoring up to the hanging lines.
I had no TV, no computer, nothing to look at except the cats, so I positioned myself on the couch across from the window and watched.
About an hour later ComEd guy came down and walked up to my door. I guess I was the customer because I was the one who called it in. I did not expect what I saw when I opened that door. Brown curly hair, blue eyes, tan - and very gay. :( Oh well, can't win on all points. Said another crew would have to come out and finish - he did all he could on his own. And they did. 3 more guys not nearly as interesting, came and finished up. I was watching them out the window when my power came on and I could have some blessed air conditioning!
ComEd left and the village came out a little later to cut up the tree and take it away.
Only 2 big chunks left - and they came and got those later too.
The guy who's driveway the tree was across must be on vacation because I haven't seen him or his vehicles all weekend. He'll come home and won't know anything happened at all! I want to be away next time we lose power!! Sheesh! This is getting old.
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