The Night the Lights Went Out in California

Okay, not all of California, just my little corner of it. Apparently Southern California Edison had an "equipment problem" last night, leaving us without power from 7:15 pm to 9:15 pm. This isn't really an exciting thing except for what I learned: Americans are spoiled.

The tv didn't work. Neither did the Internet. It got too dark to read so we lit some candles. It was still to dark to read. It was quiet. OH MY GOSH!!!!!! No electronic entertainment, no light at the flick of a switch, just the earth's natural rotation away from the light-giving sun (no wonder people worshipped it) and a bunch of cats staring at me in the candlelight, clearly thinking "What the heck is going on?"

And the amazing this is: sitting in the darkened room, watching the light flicker on the walls, I got sleepy. Yep, it was night-time and getting dark and my body wanted to sleep, of all things. Wow. Now here's the really weird thing: as soon as the lamp came back on and the tv began to blare away again, I wasn't sleepy anymore. Go figure.

Seriously, the vast majority of people on this planet do without electricity, indoor plumbing and the many other amenities we in the developed world take for granted. Heck, we even complain if the campground we go to on vacation doesn't have flush toilets! Those two hours of sitting in the (natural) dark last night made me think about just how unnatural our way of life really is. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to give up all the mod cons but I do think we as a society need to think a little bit more about the resources we use and decide if we really need to have that lamp on, or watch tv, or leave the water running.