POWERLESS

Sometimes it's not a terrible thing to have to get up several times a night to deal with a 59-year-old bladder. Last night, somewhere between 1:15 and 4:45 a.m., we lost power. I immediately set my cell phone alarm so we wouldn't oversleep. Then, being wide awake, I started worrying about all the food in our fridge/freezer. Of course, I had done the week's grocery shopping yesterday afternoon. Unlike the rest of my family, we do not live in a hurricane-prone area, so power outages are not routine. If we do have a power outage during a major storm, it usually doesn't last long. In our assessment of the situation, Tony checked the circuit breaker box to make certain the problem didn't originate there. Nope, everything good. So it was time to call the power company. Let me tell you that they were uber responsive. I'm not kidding. They were out in our alley within an hour of our call with 3 huge trucks and a team of professionals. They removed the cover from the transformer (?? not my area of expertise) box and immediately diagnosed the problem, which affected about 8 homes in our immediate vicinity. Fire ants. Yep. Apparently because of the record-setting rainfall we've had during the past 4 days, those pesky critters have been flooded out of their normal abodes and have begun to take up residence in such toney digs as transformer boxes. Being hungry as well as homeless, they start eating wiring, conduit, etc, causing blackouts in the neighborhood. The guys from the power company said they see it all the time. They had the problem fixed in a couple hours, and we're back up and running. Whew. It seemed like days, but we were only without power for about 7-8 hours. The food in the fridge is fine. My panic at not being able to work has abated. Speaking of which, better get going. So, FYI, next time your power goes out, don't discount the possibility of fire ants as the source. I never would have believed it had it not happened to us.