Morning

I woke up this morning and looked out the window as I always do. This time, I was met with pitch darkness. I looked over at the clock - nothing. My computer, typically on for weeks at a time, was off. The power was gone.

I headed to the washroom, and flicked the light switch. Nothing. I turned the taps, and a few drops came trickling down the faucet. Finally, the water started spurting out, and I used whatever little remained in the pipes to perform wudhu. Finally, the water supply exhausted, and I was left with only a little lota water. The toilet would not flush either.

After prayer, I stepped outside my 18th floor apartment. There were no lights in the halls, and no power to work the elevators. I could not see anything in the darkness. I went back into the apartment, searching for a flashlight. I knew I didn't have one, but hopelessly searched regardless. Perhaps something was left behind by the previous tenants when I moved in over a year ago. I found nothing, and gave up my futile search after some time.

It was now 7:25am. I picked up the phone to call my supervisor that I might be late this morning. But there was no dialtone - I'm a subscriber of VoIP technology, and thus internet or power outages mean I am also without phone service.

It would have been a difficult trek to navigate my way down 20 floors to the parking garage to get to my car. At this point, I thought to myself, WWBD. "What would Batman do?"

And so I threw a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, and some clothes into my bag. I pulled my laptop out of its bag, and powered it up. The LCD monitor provided enough light for me to navigate my way down the dark and dirty stairwell. Finally, I reached the second basement, where the laptop monitor continued to be the only light in the pitch black garage.

I reached my car, and turned on the radio. I heard no sign that this power outage affected anything outside my street, so I decided to head out to work.

Alas, on driving up to the first level of the parking garage, I saw a number of other cars waiting by the exit to leave the parking garage. The garage door was electronically controlled, and we could not open it manually during the power outage. I waited and waited in the parking garage, until finally, building security initiated a manual override of the parking garage controls, allowing the door to open. The garage became flooded with natural light from the outside world, and we all broke free.

I was still in pajamas, however, with an unshowered body housing unbrushed teeth. I could have gone down to my company's main office, but downtown traffic would suck me in. Fortunately, I still had the access card for an old client site I worked at, and recalled that there was a shower there. So I drove down to the old client site, snuck in through the side door closest to the shower room, and got ready. I brushed my teeth, showered, got dressed, and was soon inconspicuously on my way to the office; no one caught me during my brief intrusion.

I drove back down to my current clients office, and reported in for another fun day of consulting. In the end, I arrived only ten minutes later than usual.