Blackout

Power has finally been restored to our neck of the woods. To Zachery's infinite regret, the Great Adventure has ended (hopefully..).

Yesterday was a hot one, spent mainly in and around the house, mainly because Zack's mother decided that she wanted the air conditioned comfort of the car rather then the subway in the stifling heat. Zack and I, forced by necessity to hang around the house, filled up his swimming pool and invited one of his neighborhood friends over for the afternoon. My day was spent getting soaked by a pair of rapacious five year olds, who squealed madly when I turned the cold, cold hose on them in retaliation for all the spashing of Dad.

Zack's friend left shortly before four o'clock and we retired into the house to cool down and watch cartoons. Imagine our surprise when the power went out. We switched to reading stories for a half hour until someone called and informed me of the extent of the blackout. My initial irritation gave way to mild shock at the size of the outage. My wife called and told us her power at work was also out and she was heading downtown to pick up her sister and then coming home.

Zack, by this time, was beginning to register some concern. He is not fond of the dark at the best of times and still requires the bathroom light left on at night, blazing across into his room, presumably banishing the monsters back into the closet and under the bed, where the damn things belong. I explained carefully to him that a blackout meant we had no power - no lights, no air conditioning, no stove to cook with (and a propane barbeque that had run out the day before, naturally enough). I decided the best thing to do to keep him happy, excited and above all calm, was to keep him busy and involved...thus the Great Blackout Advernture was born.

First, it was dinner, always a priority with dads and growing boys. We ate cold tuna sandwiches, cheese and pickles in the kitchen for dinner, sharing some of the tuna with Zachery's favorite cat Charlie who had, with that uncanny cat sense, turned up just before we opened the can.

"Okay Zack, we need to get ready for the blackout" I informed him solomnly. He nodded, a serious look on his face. This was important business, his face seemed to acknowledge. First we went looking for my heavy duty flashlight. I kept it ont he downstairs bookshelf, so Zack and I trudged into the dimly lit basement to grab it. I clicked it on to be met with...nothing.

"Zack were you playing with the flashlight?" I asked innocently. "Ummm...I don't remember." came the guarded response. I sighed and checked for some additional "D" batteries. Nothing. Nothing but "C" batteries...Obviously somewhere there is a toy in this house that consumed all the "D" batteries before being relegated to the "I don't like to play with this anymore" pile...

So we started looking for candles. Zachery dug into our junk drawer and proundly offered up a handful of leftover birthday candles..."Here, Daddy! Candles!" I accepted them with a smile and then remembered where my wife had stashed a bag of tea lights. I reached under the cupborad, stretched as far as I could and triumphantly pulled out a giant bag of tea lights. It may not have been much, but the look of surprise, relief and respect that flooded Zack's face made me feel proud. Dad was not completely inept. I had no flashlight, no gas for the barbeque but damn it, I found some candles. Take your victories when you can, however small.

We dug around in Zack's toy pile, trying to find his small toy camping flashlight or his Star Wars lightsaber. That would be the thing to have for a blackout...but unfortunately his Mother, with some summer days off the previous week had reorganized the horrible chaotic mess of toys in the basement into some semblance of order, putting everything in plastic bins and organizing everything to within an inch of its life...naturally enough, we couldn't find anything.

I remembered vaguely an old flashlight of mine that might be still kicking around in the tool room, but that windowless room (more of a large closet, was pitchblack, so dark that Zack refused to even enter it. Lacking any decent light, I fell back on one of Zack's toys. Armed with two small blinking penlight toys that Zack had got from a box of Rice Krispies recently, I blundered around famously in the dark, tripping on the cat litter box, swearing madly, shifting old tools, paint cans and a rusty drain snake until I spotted the old flashlight in the dim orange glow of the penlight.

Zack, waiting anxiously on the stairs and listening to the increasingly bad language issuing from his father was distinctly relieved when I emerged with the flashlight. We trekked upstairs to discover that, wonder of wonders, it used "C" batteries.

Candles, armed with working flashlights (Zack using the light on his Gameboy), with the ever present Rice Krispie lights (I had Snap, Zachery had Toucan Sam), we only lacked a portable radio. Several minutes of rooting around gave us my wife's old Walkman and let us tune in the news for the first time in three hours.

My wife arrived home at eight-thirty, the usual 40-minute drive stretching to more than 3 hours of stop-and-go traffic. By this time, Zack was excited and feeling like he was on a true adventure, which was just were I wanted him. The last thing I wanted to deal with was him frightened and scared. I had gone to great trouble to channel this event into something memorable and exciting, not scary.

Nighttime brought something unique and wonderous to the city. The sky above was clear and cloudless, ablaze with stars. For the first time I was able to distinctly see the Milky Way stretching across the sky like a thin banner, high, cool and clear. Zack, his mother and I sat outside with my neighbors, swapping stories and marveling at the glorious firmament above.

It was late. After a time we went back in the house.

I let Zack blow out all the candles before he went to bed. It was indeed, a Great Adventure.

Comments are always welcome. You can reach me at dadchronicles(at)hotmail.com.