Power outage ended his idea outage

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN DAVID VOGEL
Despite what everyone has been telling me for the last 16 years of my life, I finally realized that it really DOES pay to procrastinate. All those teachers hounding us to get the homework done right away were obviously just trying to make us miserable.

I discovered this as I sat down to write my column last night. I had been putting it off because I really had no clue what to write about.

Sure, there were a few ideas floating around in my head, but most of them were a mental side effect of operating on very little sleep. USD 410 is on spring break, which means staying up late and watching early-morning infomercials. (They had a great deal on a juicer!)

So a little after 10 p.m., I sat down at my computer with no clue as to what I was going to use to fill up 800 words, when a topic fell right into my lap.

The electricity went off.

(Thankfully the electricity didn’t fall into my lap, because that would have hurt. It would, however, have given me an even better topic.)

I had mixed feelings at this point. First, I was happy I didn’t need to worry about a column topic. Yet I was sobered by the fact that a squirrel, freezing it’s fuzzy little tail off, had just taken it’s life in a freak electrical accident so that I might write.

It was then I realized two things: (1) I now HAD to write about the weather conditions outside, to justify the squirrel’s death, and (2) “Freak Electrical Accident” would be a great name for a horror movie.

Thankfully, the electricity came back on in a few minutes so I wouldn’t have to write my column Laura-Ingalls-Wilder-Style. This style would be accomplished by using a pen and paper, by candlelight, with the cordless phone in the background going, quote, “beep.”

Our cordless phone always says “beep” when the electricity is out.

However, my plans quickly changed because shortly thereafter, the electricity went out again, with a very ill-saved column going with it.

Since then, the power has come and gone. It’s now Monday morning, and I’m typing frantically to get as much written before the electricity goes out on me again.

(Pauses typing to save the document.)

OK, so now I’m guaranteed about half of a column in the event that the power goes out.

I have a strict no-handwritten-column policy, which states that conditions have to be absolutely lousy before I will pick up a pencil to write an article. I believe this circumstance calls for a deserted island, a small and wet cave, and a pet volleyball named Wilson.

The problem is, it’s not even snowing or sleeting yet. All we’ve had is rain and wind so far, and if the electricity can’t even handle that much stress, I’m not sure what it’s going to do in the event that everything starts to freeze.

I’m predicting mayhem. Our electric company (Westar Energy: “Doing what it takes to keep the lights on…as long is it’s a mild 65-degree day, with a clear skies and light breezes. Otherwise, we hope you have a backup generator.”) will probably explode, sending mass quantities of undirected electricity through the wires, frying every squirrel in the area.

Of course, we would then be left in the Ice Age of the Second Century with no electricity AND no squirrels. Whatever will we do?

This would be great, except for the fact that school is on spring break.

I have a major bone to pick with Mother Nature. This brings up a couple of questions, mainly, who would share a bone with Mother Nature, and why would you pick it?

But this is beside the point.

What I’m getting at is the fact that all winter long we’ve been stuck with subtropical conditions, and no snow days whatsoever. And then the very weekend before spring break, meteorologists start predicting heavy snow, and the electricity goes out several times.

While watching what little news I could between the power outages last night, many schools were canceling classes, and I have a feeling we would have, too. They all get snows days, but what do we get? A lousy spring break.

So I’m proposing that USD 410 give us a couple days of extra spring break this year as consolation snow days to make up for the snow days we would have had if our spring break had occurred on a different week.

Hold on a minute as I save this thing again before the power goes

* * *

UFO: Salt Lake City, Utah, gets more snow than Fairbanks, Alaska.

Don’t ask why

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