The first week of
2018 was so cold, one of the weathermen said the only place colder than New
Hampshire was Siberia.
Believe me, being
the second coldest place in the world was not an honor I was thrilled about.
Not only did my car battery raise the white flag of surrender and then cough
and drop dead, the first Thursday of the month, a snowstorm with winds strong
enough to knock over an elephant blew in.
I had prepared
for the storm in advance, however. I bought enough groceries to feed a baseball
team. I also heaped my shopping cart with enough dog food and treats to nourish
a pack of hungry wolves. When I saw the other customers in the store flinging
candles and battery-operated lanterns into their shopping carts, I smiled
smugly. I didn’t need to buy any of those things, I told myself. No, my house
was equipped with an automatic generator system that kicked on and kept
everything running smoothly whenever there was a power failure. During the five
years I’d had it, it flawlessly had carried me through 15 power failures, some
as long as four days. So I was confident I didn’t have to concern myself with
buying any additional heating or lighting sources
The day of the storm was brutal. The snow was coming down so
hard I couldn’t see anything but a solid sheet of white when I looked outside,
and the wind was whipping the snow into drifts that were as high as my windows.
By that evening, the winds had increased to the point where they sounded like
freight trains barreling toward my house.
I was calm and cozy, however, curled up on the sofa and
watching TV, a cup of hot tea by my side. Suddenly, the lights flickered. Past
experience had taught me that flickering was never a good thing…that it nearly always led
to one big final flicker followed by complete darkness, usually for at least 24 hours.
Sure enough, as if on cue, the lights flickered one more
time and then went out. The house was thrust into total blackness.
Still, I wasn’t worried. I knew that within a few seconds,
the generator would roar into action and the lights, TV and heat all would pop
right back on.
Well, I waited a few seconds and heard the generator make a
sound that resembled that of a cat trying to hack up a fur ball. After that,
there was only silence…and continued darkness. Five minutes later, I was forced
to admit the truth – the generator was dead.
I panicked. I absolutely panicked. The wind chill outside
was something like 35 degrees below zero and there I was, without any heat.
Even worse, the storm already had dumped 14 inches of snow and I wasn’t plowed
out, so no one could come to my rescue.
I was trapped. Visions of my stiff body being found looking like a giant
blue Popsicle in the morning, after all of the water pipes in the house had burst open and flooded out the place, flashed through my mind.
I have three cordless phones in my house, and all three
operate from one base… powered by electricity. So they were useless. My cell
phone gets reception only if I climb the oak tree at the end of my driveway and
hang by my heels from the fifth branch...and that’s during clear weather. But
in my office I have an old-fashioned landline plugged into the wall. It was my
only hope for reaching the outside world.
I inched my way through the darkness and over to the kitchen
drawer, then felt around until I located my powerful little flashlight. I then
headed into my office. There, I used the old phone, which I’d bought back when
Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon, and called my friend Nancy to see if
her husband, Paul, might be able to give me some advice.
The second I heard Paul come to the phone, I blurted out, “Yes, I have a full tank of propane – 500 gallons,” before he could ask me the inevitable.
He suggested that I go outside, open the door on the front of the
generator and look for either a manual-start switch or a reset button. He then asked if I'd be able to stay on the phone with him while I did that.
“Not unless I can find a 200-foot line for this
phone’s wall jack,” I muttered.
So, at 10:00 at night in the pitch dark during a blizzard,
there I was, dressed like someone who was about the scale Mount Everest,
venturing out past the end of my house to the edge of the woods, to check out
my generator, which I knew absolutely nothing about.
I soon discovered that my shin-high boots were no match
for the knee-deep snow as I trudged through the drifts toward my destination.
When I finally reached the generator, all I saw was a snow mound that resembled
an igloo.
I didn’t want to have to walk back to the other end of the
property to the garage to get a shovel, so using only my gloved hands, I
started removing the snow from the generator, all the while, holding the
flashlight in my mouth (and praying my lips wouldn't permanently freeze to it). I also was hoping that maybe the generator hadn’t started because it was
buried in the snow and was being smothered, so when I uncovered it, it would be able to breathe again and would start right up.
After I cleared the generator and all of its vents, I opened
the door on the front. The door was so cold, it snapped right off in my
hand.
“That can’t be good,” I mumbled, frowning at it.
The first thing I saw inside was a hornets’ nest. I was
pretty sure the little buggers had to be frozen stiff at that point, so I
pulled out the nest and tossed it into the snow. Then I checked the panel on
the generator. The only thing visible was an on/off switch that looked like a
circuit breaker. I flipped it. Nothing happened. I flipped it a couple more
times…with the same results.
I made my way back into the house and called Paul to tell
him about my lack of success.
“I sure wish I could get over to your house to help you
out,” he said.
“Well, unless you’re driving a Mack truck with a big plow on the
front, there’s no way you’re even going to get into my driveway,” I said.
“Then try checking your circuit-breaker panel in the house,” he
said. “There might be something there that will reset the generator.”
I hung up and checked the breaker panel. I saw about 20
switches, none of which I dared to flip. They all looked alike and all were
facing in the same direction. There wasn’t even one that appeared to be
different from the others or stood out as being the “flip me!” switch.
“I’m NOT going to try to deal with this on my own any more,” I finally
decided. “I’m going to call the local fire department and have them tell me exactly what to do. I’m sure they must know a lot about generator systems and circuit
breakers.”
So I called the fire department’s non-emergency number and
got a recording telling me to call 911. I wasn’t that desperate…at least not
yet. I then called the police department’s non-emergency number and got another
recording. Desperate, I called the 211 number I’d seen advertised on TV for people
who had no heat. Again, another
recording. I began to wonder if the human race had become extinct because
everyone had frozen to death. I tried calling one more person, my
jack-of-all-trades neighbor two houses away, who has a snowmobile. I knew he,
if anyone, could make it through the snow and over to my house to help me out.
His phone rang about 10 times. No one answered, not even a recording.
Frustrated, I called Paul again and told him it was my
farewell phone call because I was pretty sure I was going to freeze to death in
another three or four hours.
“Did the generator come with a manual when it was
installed?” he asked, not yet giving up, as I already had. “It must have a troubleshooting section in it somewhere.”
“Yeah – but I doubt I can find it in the dark.” I said, sighing.
Normally, I would have looked up the instructions online, but I had no devices
available that could get me online. So
I hung up and dug out the box of manuals in my office cabinet. I then closed
the office door (so my dogs wouldn’t come in and disturb me), sat on the floor,
held the flashlight in my teeth, and searched through the paperwork.
I found manuals for everything from my TV and microwave to
my ceiling fans and smoke detectors. Fifteen minutes later, I still hadn’t
found any information about the generator (but I did find the warranty for my
mattress). I was contemplating going back outside and giving the generator a
swift kick when Paul called back, wondering how I was doing.
“I can’t find the manual, no one is answering my calls, I’m
snowed in and my house is about to form stalactites on the ceiling,” I whined.
“I’m doomed.”
Just then, I realized I had answered his call on my cordless
phone that had been lying next to the other phone in my office.
“Wait a minute!” I said, puzzled. “I’m talking to you on my
cordless phone! How is that possible
without any power?”
“Where are you?” Paul asked.
“In my very dark office.”
“Is the door closed?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Open it.”
I opened my office door and saw the lights on out in the
living room. I burst out laughing.
“The power’s back on, I take it?” I heard Paul’s voice ask.
Once again, my “duh!” factor had reared its ugly head.
The power failure had lasted a grand total of about 90 minutes. I had panicked for absolutely nothing.
Two days later the authorized technician for my generator
arrived.
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he announced after putting
it through its paces. “It was just too cold out for it to kick in. The next time
that happens, flip it to manual and then it should start. When it does, flip it
back to automatic. That will take care of it.”
“And just where is all of this stuff I’m supposed to flip
located?” I asked.
“Behind the door on the front of the generator.”
I shook my head. “The only thing behind that door was a
hornets’ nest...oh, and some kind of on/off switch.”
He nodded. “And behind that front panel is another panel.”
How was I supposed to know my generator had a secret panel
hidden behind the front panel? Who designed the machine anyway? A smuggler?
The technician did a bunch of stuff to the generator like
change the oil and the filter and re-gap the spark plugs…all for a mere $225.
Now I’m supposedly all set for the next power failure.
So the first week of January, I spent at total of $375 for a
new car battery and maintenance on my generator, all because of the darned
weather.
At least I now will be able to keep my New Year’s resolution to
lose 20 pounds. That's because once my current stash of groceries runs out, I’ll have no money
left in the monthly budget to buy any more food.
I’ll probably end up having to beg my dogs for some of their
Kibbles ‘n Bits.
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