Light a Match, Curse a Match

Hi there! Dave-El here and welcome to I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You, your internet home for spontaneous inertness.

Monday night a major thunderstorm lashed at the walls of the El family Fortress of Ineptitude as winds whipped by up to 70 MPH and rain pounded down in buckets.

And then we lost power around 8:30 PM.

Where our Fortress is located, we fortunately don't lose power that often; the power lines in our neighborhood are underground. It's not like it was when I was kid back in the 1970's in a small southern town where the occurrence of a storm was pretty much a guarantee that we would lose power for at least a little bit.

I used to love to trick my mom during power outages. She would say something like, "I was going to fry us some chicken for supper but I can't with the power out." And I would helpfully suggest, "Well, why don't we bake something in the oven instead?" And she would get up from her chair, thinking that was a really good idea, why didn't she... Hey, hold on a minute! The oven won't work either with the power out.

Or maybe its getting a bit warm since the air conditioner isn't running when the power is out. So I would suggest that maybe we could plug in a fan instead and she would actually get up to do that. Really!

I suspect I've been cut out of her will.

There is always something about a power outage that fascinates me. Make no mistake, I want my AC on (or heat if is winter), I want my TV and my computer and my microwave. I am most definitely a 21st Century guy which means when the zombie robot apocalypse comes to destroy us all, I will be among the first to go.

Where was I? Oh. Yeah.

There is always something about a power outage that fascinates me. We get so use to the constant hum of electricity about us that it becomes disconcertingly quiet when it goes away. Even if you're alone and every electrical device in the house is turned off, it doesn't compare to the even deeper quiet when the electricity is not on.

I stepped outside after the storms had passed and there was an eerie ghostly glow over everything. Houses stood dark and black against this strange milky luminescence. Everything was silent beyond comprehension. The darkness melts in and out from black to grey to black again. There were a few glimmers of light here and there where people who had found flashlights and candles to illuminate their homes.

Back in the house with my wife and daughter, things were less quiet. "It's so hot in here!" "The wi-fi is down!" "We can't even watch TV!" "This dark is so spooky!" And if you think that's bad, you should've heard my teenage daughter. 

Me, I'm thinking what can one do? The power is off and fussing about it wouldn't make it come on any faster. I opened some windows to get a breeze through the house. ("It's still too hot in here!"). And as for the darkness, better to light a candle than to, well, you know.

So I decided to light some candles.

Dear reader, there's a reason I refer to our family abode as the Fortress of Ineptitude.

I found some pumpkin scented tea candles that I had bought for Halloween jack-o-lanterns from years past. I placed them in some small clear glass bowls that would keep the candle flames from other things. I was being clever.

I had a box of matches and I was ready to go.

Struck the match.


Stuck the end with the fire against the candle wick.

The next step in that process should be "lit candle". I mean, who can screw up lighting a candle?

Whoops! Spoilers!

So I struck a match and placed the burning tip against the candle wick and watched as the little flame on the end of the match danced up the stick to burn my fingers.

Ouch!



Tried it again.


And again.


And again. 


Apparently the most fireproof thing in my house is a candle wick. 

So I've got burned fingers for my trouble and no light. And then the match box fell apart. Little matches everywhere. Really, nothing this simple should be this hard.



Eventually I did get some candles lit.



Yes, I, the great and grand male patriarch of the El family pushed back the darkness in my mighty fortress. I command the fire, I summon the light, I....

And the power came back on.

And I'm so glad my suffering amuses you.