Mike

Ball

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June 16, 2008

The Night the Lights Went Out

“Wow, some storm out there,” says Dad, standing by the window and staring at the dark night sky.

Little Suzie looks up from her pink My Little Pony laptop computer, “The National Weather Service data shows a strong occluded front moving in, and it’s generating a major thermal inversion.”

“Nya nya nya inversion,” chants Todd Jr., aiming a kick at his younger sister’s computer and narrowly missing as she pulls it out of harm’s way. “It’s more like the wind is going to blow the whole world into outer space.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what it’s like,” says Little Suzie.

“It’s a perfect night to stay inside and watch American Idol,” says Mom.

At that moment the lights go out.

“Ahhhhhgh,” says Mom.

“So much for Idol,” says Little Suzie.

“Cool, we’re in outer space,” says Todd Jr.

“All right, nobody panic! I’ll go get the flashlight,” says Dad, stepping on Bernie the Schnauzer.

“Yorrrrrrrrp!” says Bernie the Schnauzer.

Half an hour later the family is sitting on the living room floor huddled around the yellow pool of light from a birthday candle. “I asked you to pick up some batteries for the flashlight,” says Dad.

“When did you ask me to do that?” asks Mom.

“I think you were pregnant with Todd Jr.”

“So it’s my fault that your flashlight batteries have been dead for nine years?”

“And it wouldn’t kill you to have some real candles around the house.”

“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me!” sings Todd Jr., and he blows out the candle.

As the room goes black, they all see a faint blue-white glow from the corner of the room, where Little Suzie sits in the arm chair with a small battery-operated book light clipped to the cover of Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice. “Hey, where did you get that?” shouts Todd Jr.

“Grandma got them for all of us last Christmas, remember?”

“Is that what that thing was for?” says Mom. “I thought it was to hold recipe cards.”

“I’ve been using mine as a tie clip,” says Dad.

“I couldn’t find mine after I threw it at my stupid sister,” says Todd Jr.

“I know,” says Little Suzie, pulling a second book light out of her Barbie’s Polar Expedition backpack.

“Say, that gives me an idea,” says Dad.

Thirty minutes later Mom, Dad and Todd Jr. all have book lights duct taped to their foreheads. “Now we’re just like coal miners,” says Dad, “just without the shovels and the dynamite.”

“And we probably have less risk of getting Black Lung Disease here in the living room,” says Little Suzie, who has managed to keep her book light off her forehead and on her book.

“Did you have to wrap the duct tape around my hair?” asks Mom.

“I’m Cyclops, the X-man,” says Todd Jr., sprinting across the room, stepping on Bernie the Schnauzer, then slamming into the book case.

“Yorrrrrrrrp!” says Bernie.

When the lights go back on a few hours later, Mom is asleep with a People magazine in her lap. Dad has Bernie the Schnauzer at his feet, and both are snoring. Little Suzie has just learned that Darcy loved Elizabeth all along and that he now wants to marry her. Todd Junior is unconscious on the floor next to the book case.

And all is right with the world.

Copyright © 2008, Michael Ball. Distributed exclusively by North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.