Just Spotted at Fern's: Batteries
Batteries used to strike me as something along the lines to flood insurance here in the high desert: Not something terribly crucial, not something forefront on my mind, durn handy to have in case of a flood (which happens more often than you'd think), more of an annoyance than a mandatory item. After all, if I want a light, I'll reach over and flip the switch on the lamp next to my desktop. Right?
Then we lost power for four days running. In the high heat of summer. In that same high desert where it floods about once a century. Suddenly, batteries weren't so much of a luxury item as they were a lifeline.
It started on a sweltering Wednesday mid-atfternoon when the substation up the road from us caught fire, although I didn't know at the time what the cause of the disruption was. I just stared at the blank, black screen of my desktop system, shrugged, ambled over to the laptop and powered it up. Or at least I tried to. The laptop battery was low, so I had only a few minutes of power left on it before it too turned into an expensive paperweight.
I assumed the power would be back on in a few minutes anyway, so I didn't really worry too much. After all, we've had rolling blackouts for a few years now as California's power resources have been stretched to the breaking point. The minutes turned to hours, and the house began to swelter a bit in 112-degree summer temperatures. The swamp cooler became a sorely missed necessity.
Darkness began to fall, and I reached for a flashlight. My Mini Maglite, faithful as ever, powered right up and got me around the house to locate a larger and more powerful flashlight - which was out of batteries. I retrieved the last few remaining C-cells from the recharger and installed them, then used that to find the supply of non-rechargeable batteries, which had managed to dwindle to four AA-cells that remained in a mangled, dusty sealpak that once held 16. I tested them quickly in the Maglite. Two were viable; two were barely alive.
So there I was, in the dark, two batteries left, no clue when power would be restored. I did the math.
The portable fan I got my husband for his birthday a few years back: 4 AA-cells to power up. No joy there, so I retreated to the coolest part of the house.
The big flashlight with the rechargeables inside: 4 C-cells, all dwindling. No joy there, so it would be saved for emergencies.
The laptop: one specialized battery, without a charge, without a backup. No computer work tonight.
Dinner was a handful of Triscuits and an unheated cup of soup. The stove top, though gas, takes electricity to light. Attempting to light it with a barbecue clicker failed. No batteries. Attempting to light it with a cigarette lighter failed, and I can rationalize that singed eyebrows are all the rage these days. The cats got tuna, thanks to a manual canopener. Good thing we kept it after we got the battery-powered one, which barely had enough of a charge to turn a quarter way around the can.
My beloved stack of unread books taunted me from the darkness. No reading until dawn, I muttered back to them. Must- save- batteries. Still way too hot to sleep, so I considered the portable CD player as entertainment. No batteries. We'd taken the batteries out years ago and used them elsewhere.
I considered driving into town for batteries, got back up and fumbled for purse and keys, then headed for the garage. Stopped, garage door opener in hand and feeling rather stupid. The opener runs on... you guessed it. Batteries. Oh well. I decided to get in through the locked side door and attempt to open the car door by hand. No joy. The manual override chain dangled far out of reach up in the rafters, and I don't do ladders. Didn't matter. In the heat of the moment, I'd forgotten that my husband had taken the car out of town anyway, and there was no way I could drive the vintage restoration project Datsun. No battery.
I briefly contemplated walking the 7 miles to town. In the dark. Down a remote highway. With a flashlight with dying batteries. I discarded the idea and fumbled my way back into the dark house.
With the careful deployment of eight small votive candles, judiciously placed in high-sided containers so that panicked cats couldn't knock them over, I switched off the flashlight and got in a bit of reading time. NO idea when I extinguished them and went to sleep. No batteries in the battery-assisted electric clock. We'd never needed them.
By the end of the four-day ordeal, I'd burned through 3/4 of my candle collection and the house was permeated with the smell of blueberry-vanilla-pine-sandalwood-cherry-pumpkin-ocean-spice aromas. The C-cells in the big flashlight were drained. The batteries in the Maglite were barely sputtering along. I would have called into town but the desktop phone runs on wall electricity even to get to a dial tone, and I don't own a cell phone, but if I DID, it probably would have needed a battery anyway!
Now, feel free for calling me an idiot for not being better prepared. And, while you're doing that, take a quick mental inventory of everything in your house and garage, car and RV that you may take for granted will just work when you pick it up, start it up, fire it up. How many of those things run on, you guessed it... batteries?
