Scared In The Dark

It's a strange thing to lose electricity. When I was a kid, I thought it was fun, a bit like camping, we would huddle around using hushed voices, and my mother would light the Holy Candles, and my dad would be shouting, "Where is the BLESSED FLASHLIGHT??" (To this day, candles and flashlights have a spiritual significance, although my candles are not holy, they are cinnamon scented, and the flashlight not blessed, but it's lime green, and I bought it at the CVS). We would sit around and play made-up games, like "People in the Neighborhood" where you would think of a person, and the other players in the game would get to ask questions that you could only answer with a yes or a no, until they guessed the person. We would sing songs from " The Wizard of OZ." I know it sounds really lame, but in the middle of a tornado, in the dark of the basement, it was good to have the distraction.

Tonight when I came home from work, the power was out. It was weird, because A. is away, and the house was completely dark and quiet. It was raining, but not very hard, and I couldn't hear any thunder. I was hungry, but since the stove is one of those new digital things, when the power goes out, the electric pilot lights don't work, and all the high-tech functions are completely useless. So I found the lime green flashlight, rummaged in the cabinets for a few minutes, and came up with the perfect dinner, Ritz Crackers, BBQ Fritos, and for dessert, I rescued some melting Vanilla Swiss Almond from the tepid freezer. After eating, I sat in the dark and wondered just what I was supposed to do? No TV, no sports, NO INTERNET! No news, and I have to tell you, I've become accustomed to instant information, and if I can't get it right when I need it, I get a little panicky. I sat in the dark, preserving the batteries in my lime green flashlight and wondered just what was causing the blackout. It could have been a bunch of people cranking up the air conditioning, and overloading the circuits. It had stopped raining, but what if this was the eye of the tornado, and I was actually supposed to be in the basement? Or even worse, a terrorist attack? I sat alone in the dark, getting more freaked out by the minute. The silence was getting on my nerves, so I started singing, "...if ever a wever a wiz there was, the wizard of Oz is one because, because..."

"HELLO!"

Holy Shit! Who was that? I heard some movement at the back door.

"Who's THERE? Are YOU A TERRORIST?" I gripped my lime green flashlight ready to use it to defend myself.

"NO, it's your neighbor Beth! Are you singing?"

Oh great. My neighbor now thinks I've gotten on the crazy bus. It turned out that she needed some batteries, so I found some for her, and she left.

But maybe the whole country has gotten on the crazy bus, and we're all on our way to where ever that bus stops. If you think about it, we've done some pretty crazy things. Just look at all of the money we've spent on defense in the last 6 years. We invaded a country that had no nukes, just because we thought they might, and the countries that actually have nukes, Pakistan and North Korea, we gave them billions of dollars. We threaten war and economic sanctions against Iran, (no nukes) we give Israel, (many nukes) billions in military aid. Our foreign policy is to give lots of dollars to countries with nukes, and to invade countries with no nukes. Our solution
to a war that we began for reasons that we know now to be false, is to send more more soldiers to fight in the war that wasn't necessary in the first place. Don't you think that's a little bit crazy? America is sitting in the dark, scared of every shadow.

It's time to turn on the lights.

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