All was merry and bright last Wednesday evening in spite of the Nor’easter blowing into town. A giant ham was chillin’ in the fridge, the kids were playing Mario Kart, and my husband and I were cozying up on the couch to watch yet another riveting episode of CHiPs.
But before Ponch was able to rescue the station wagon full of kids dangling from a power line over the streets of LA, the unthinkable happened: our power flickered.
It turned off once… we held our breath. The image on the TV reappeared. Ponch’s jaw clenched sexily.
Twice…! Jon Baker’s doe eyes glistened with anticipation.
Then boom. Out. The entire household powered down in a flash and chaos erupted.
If this ever happens to you, here are a list of things to help you survive no power on Thanksgiving:
- Take turns sitting in your idling car. Not for warmth, but to charge your iPhone so you can still play Candy Crush.
- Pass the time by checking Central Maine Power’s website of power outages so you can monitor how everyone else around you in a 60 mile radius has goddamn power except you.
- Consider burning iPhone for warmth.
- Spend cold nights tossing and turning, with only one thought invading your dreams: Will I ever know if Ponch rescued those trapped kids?!
- Cooking hot dogs, beans and bacon on the grill outside in a snowbank on Thanksgiving day is a good idea.
- Cooking scrambled eggs on the grill is a bad idea.
- Snuggle with the nearest warm body to help stave off hypothermia.
- Make sure that body didn’t just eat a can of beans.
- Gin.
- By all means, jump in your Jeep with the bald tires and fishtail your way to the nearest Dunkin Donuts with power because if you don’t have coffee soon you will go batshit insane.
- Weep uncontrollably as you stick the ham and case of beer in a snowbank. Use canned cranberry sauce as traction for next drive to Dunkin Donuts.
- Fumbling around playing football outside with your kids in 15 degree weather is almost the same as watching the Dallas Cowboys play.
- As you sit there shivering in your pitch dark bedroom at 2 am listening to the roar of the wind outside, remind yourself if Laura Ingalls could do it, so can you. Why, they spent long frigid winters in a shack huddled around an oil lamp with only Pa’s fiddle for entertainment!
- F*%^ you, Half Pint.
- Haha! I’m kidding! Wow, that was mean, wasn’t it? I apologize. What I meant to say was f*%^ you Pa Ingalls and your stupid fiddle.
And there you have it. All solid advice.
Hope you all had a warm, bean-free, Poncherellirific Thanksgiving!
She's A Maineiac 
Reblogged this on ugiridharaprasad.
Too funny! Considering I now live in a place where winter weather lasts about nine months out of the year and power outages are regular, I’ll keep these tips in mind 🙂
Wow, this was a Thanksgiving to remember. I’m glad you kept your sense of humor. I love watching CHIPS. 😉
Well, I have to admit I was lost almost all of my sense of humor when I realized we couldn’t flush the toilet.
funny–but so glad it did not happen to me–it is safer to have your Thanksgiving during the second week of October–it is usually still sunny and bright and no snow in the forecast for 5 weeks! who says Canadians aren’t smart?
Canadians are brilliant.
That would be a nightmare! No matter how much technology I use, the electronic thermometer, microwave, food processor, I still stress out over making the meal.
Last December the gas went out and our house plummeted to 40 degrees. I hope it’s back on now!
We got it back days ago, we were lucky. But I’m just now getting enough sanity back to be able to blog. We did get worried when the temp inside was at 55 degrees. Mainly because my mom next door likes to keep her heat cranked to a balmy 150 degrees. We were considering leaving when our neighbor came over with an extra generator. And that was when the power went back on!
Timing is everything! It’s funny how I could deal with it if I was outside, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around being so uncomfortable in my own house.
Glad to see you’ve dug yourself out (and maybe the ham too) unless of course you’ve set up camp and are posting from Dunkin Donuts.
We were all sitting around the Dunkin donuts for an hour, mainly to get warm when I had the brilliant idea: We should just live here from now on.
What? No Starbucks?
As grandson read his required reading I Survived Hurricane Katrina, he asked…now how many days were we without power during the hurricane [Ike]? Answer: 9
Seriously, I do hope your power is back on.
Nine is a long time! I was going crazy after one day. But this was actually nothing compared to the Ice Storm of 1998 when most people had no power for weeks.
Your coffee pot should have a backup generator all its own. I mean, what if Dunkin Donuts had no power. Then what? It’s best to be prepared. That’s what Ponch would do.
Yeah! This xmas I’m only asking for one gift: a battery-powered coffee maker.
Having gone thru more than one of those horrific power outages and storms in Central New York, I can certainly identify with the coffee run to Dunkin Donuts. Hope you all: have your power back on, are warmed up by now, had a terrific Thanksgiving, and all is back to normal. 😉
Thanks, Judy, we are happy our power is back on. When it came on, we actually all jumped around the house dancing and yelling at the top of our lungs. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving.
Basement. Sump pump. Crappy power lines recently “updated” Rain/snow. That smell. Lesson learned. $400 Chinese made portable generator (battery starter). F&^@ the power company.
Yup, I think now is the time we finally invest in a generator. I’ve had enough. We’re buying a house next spring and my main requirement is that it have a wood stove.
Darla, I am assuming your power is on, although the the absence of photos makes me wonder if this post was written from a phone …
I think you should thank climate change for giving you the opportunity to celebrate like the pilgrims did — and next post I want to see pictures of the entire Maineiac clan in the pilgrim attire they donned for this First Thanksgiving With No Power!
Climate change? Say what? There is no such thing! Sure the high today was 20 degrees and tomorrow it’ll hit 60, then it’ll plummet back down to 10, then rise back up to 50 again but that’s just a coincidence.
Brilliant, I’m still laughing….. at the picture of CHiPs. I remember the series well. Were those guys ever that young, or is that the promotional dolls or wax work figures?
Love your list too!
Wow, y’know after further inspection of the photo I still don’t know if they’re wax or not. I blame Erik Estrada’s dead soulless eyes.
As the result of a crippling snow storm some 3 or 4 years ago here in NW CT we were without power for 4 days and didn’t I scramble through some snow drifts to get to the nearby convenience store — on foot– for coffee….
A nearby neighbor, well known for not helping with the shoveling was very generous in running his car so the many could charge their cell phones and not a one bitched about his not lifting a finger to help shovel for a very long time.
Hope your power is back on. Happy belated Thanksgiving!
About five minutes into our hellish drive down the icy road to DD’s, I said to my husband, “Was this a good idea?” He looked at me and said, “Hell yes. COFFEE.”
Hell yes!
You know you are with the right kind of guy when you share the same priorities!
Bwahahahahaha! “F*%^ you, Half Pint.” Somebody needs to start a blog by this name…
I think I just might….
This was great to read. We were lucky enough to have only a few power flashes. I must admi cooking the turkey on the grill was a solid thought running through my mind as was keeping my mother warm by whatever means neccesary, ie running car where she too would have played candy crush, alcohol seemed a viable option in a big way, and locating candles for back up lighting. Your sarcasm just kills me… hang in there this winter! If it gets horrid come find me…door is always open!
Oh believe me, there were more than a few conversations about how we could cook that big spiral ham. And between my sleep deprivation and the alcohol consumption, I was pretty delirious after just 24 hours without power.
No power is the worst, no matter what the circumstances are. I don’t think I could have ever been a pioneer. Or even lived in one of those medieval castles. Drafty stone rooms with cold stone floors and glassless (aka drafty) holes for windows? No thank you. Glad to hear everything is back in order!
I’m pretty sure if I was living back in Little House on the prairie, I would have become best friends with Nellie Olsen just so I could sleep at her house and use her bathroom.
Great, now I got the Little House on the Prairie theme in my head… not the opening song. The closing credits. The goddam closing credits!
But I do thank you for the Chips flashback… man I loved that show.
Aw! but doesn’t the sight of Carrie falling down the hill just tug at your heart strings?
I only watch Chips because I’m in awe at Jon Baker’s hair, it was spectacular.
If it wasn’t so funny, it would be so incredibly sad…I wonder what Christmas will bring!
Well, next time I’ll be prepared. I’ve got battery powered lanterns, coffee maker, and extra bottles of gin.
I’m Giving Thanks for your hilarious account of your loss of power on an especially crucial day. Funny stuff, and as always, Thank God for Dunkin’! 😉
This is what killed me the most: the timing. The power was out just long enough to totally ruin Thanksgiving dinner. But yes, amen for DDs!
Oh my goodness! You make me laugh – I am sorry you were in the situation – but it is one of those Thanksgivings you”ll never forget. You know the ones I’m talking about; Like the year Grandma dropper her turkey leg and then her knickers trying to beat the dog to the meat – and the year the neighbors burned their turkey, threw it out of their window in a fit of rage and our dog drug it on the porch and put it behind the pile of wood? lol…
Glad power is restored as is your sense of humor! Merry Happy Good Holidays! 😉
Thanks for reading and this will be the best Christmas if our power just stays on. That’s all I want.
The only thing that sucks more than losing power is when the only wood you have to burn is green. We lose our water, too, when our power goes out, but thankfully there is a stream behind the house that is a mere 15 ft. walk. With 5 gal. bucket in hand, we have flushing water. Hope the hot dogs were at least turkey dogs (in honor of the day). And John and Ponch saved the station wagon, but not the kids.
Again, the right priorities 😛
My husband assures me the station wagon was saved although I have my doubts.
Dear Darla, I think I know what you are going to add to your Wish-List for Christmas:
Candles (the real ones, with wax) and matches
Batteries for a brandnew batterie-powered RADIO – so you can at least hear some news. If Laura Ingalls had had that back in those days, Pa would not have had to fiddle!
Board games – to fight your Candy Crush addiction – can be played without power – by candle light. There are funny ones out these days.
New polar-sleeping-bags.
Though you will not be able to get the cook book for people stranded power-less in a snow-storm, just yet – you will have to write that one first.
After one day with no heat, I was wishing I had Pa’s fiddle so I could light it on fire.
But you would still have needed a stove for that …
I’m leaving right now for a DD creme-filled and it’s your fault. And I was doing so well……
You’re welcome….?
Chips? This was a Thanksgiving last week and not from 35 years ago 😀
The only good powercut is when you are in the pub. Substitute powercut for snowed in aswell. The candles come out, the bar tab starts since you can’t pay for your drinks. Such a magical time.
Hopefully, with the lights out they can’t see that you scrawled somebody else’s name to the bar tab, Joe.
My husband watches Chips pretty much every single night thanks to our TV Land channel here. It’s either that or MASH.
Love MASH! You know I’d want to watch Murder She Wrote instead though, that’s my old TV gem. Actually it’s Prisoner Cell Block H but you may not have ever head it over there, it was Australian. And just about the best TV EVER made! Yeah, sometimes the sets would wobble and the acting was awful…
The big question on everyone’s mind is, is the CHIPS thing a local holiday tradition or just in your family?
Thank goodness you survived the ordeal with your sense of humor intact, Darlinski.
Oh Chips is the tradition at our house for every holiday!
I think my sense of humor has now taken a darker turn after not having heat or coffee. I’ve crossed over into pure unbridled bah humbugness.
I hate when that happens. Hoping you find your way back to your usual spot in the land of rainbows and sparkly ponies real soon.
I just wish I had a jeep with bald tires…lol! Glad you survived!
It was either the Jeep or risk going out in my roller skate car (Prius)
Love it! Uh…CHIPS? We had a similar outage a couple of years back, only it was for 24 hours and temps in the 100’s. I think I might take a few feet of snow over that…but only for a day. And as long as someone else shovels me out.
Hope you had a great week off, Darla!
Oh well I once spent several days slogging around in 100 plus temps with 100% humidity and lived to tell about it. Barely. (Disney World)
Sounds like a good excuse not to cook or get out of bed to me 🙂
Amen! Y’know, I have to admit, the first night I stayed up to 2 am and I had my iPhone perched next to my bed playing soft meditation music and I sat there and watched the candles flicker. Most relaxing time I’ve had in years. Plus, no TV meant no news and it was a nice break from all the negativity.
Ohmygod-I’m-out-of-gin! Will vodka work?
But of course! Merry Christmas and a happy happy happy New Year to you!
Hilarious, as usual. Laughed out loud all the way through. I’ll stick with Whiskey, though, tyvm. And tell me again why you couldn’t flush? I must’ve missed that part… 😉
Hope Christmas is NOTHING like Thanksgiving!!
– C
Ooh, yeah whiskey does the trick quite nicely. Ah, I remember back in my days of youth when I’d knock back a few shots of the cheap stuff, Yukon Jack….powerful enough to burn the hairs right off your head.
Oh and there was no flushing at my house because we have a well so we rely on an electric pump. Really really sucks to be us.
From the inside out?? Yikes! I’ll take my regular Jack Daniels, tyvm, the one that does NOT burn the hairs right off my head. 😉
I’m sorry for your Thanksgiving and hope your Christmas will have extra oomph to make up for it. We had a power outage too (might have been on your Thanksgiving, come to think of it), and we were grateful for our fireplace and gas oven.
Been thinking about you, Darla! Hope things have warmed up and you and your family will be all cozy for Christmas. 🙂
Sorry/entertained to hear about your rough Thanksgiving. Here’s to a well-lit Christmas!