Suicidal Squirrel Cripples Household for 2.5 Hours, story at 10

Woke up this morning, slid feet into gray fuzzy slippers, arms into one of Bob's fleece jackets, wrapped it tight around me and padded into the kitchen to get a pot of water going for coffee. I bought a French press a few months back and am in love with the flavor of coffee it produces. Rich, unrefined, full-bodied caffeinated goodness. On one of our endless trips to the ER during Bob's nightmare, I remember sitting by his side, holding his hand as he lay on the ER bed, IVs puncturing the tissue-thin skin of his skin-on-bone arms, eyes closed, face occasionally contorting in a grimace as wave after wave of pain rocked his body. It was very late at night, I don't remember precisely what crisis this was, after his second heart attack, I know that much . . . at one point, a nurse or technician, or maybe a doctor, asked if he could get me a cup of coffee. By now, I had learned the coffee in the ER was something to be avoided, watery brown liquid served in a styrofoam cup, adding a pronounced plastic overtone to the nauseating flavor. I politely declined his offer. "You look like you could really use a cup of coffee. I make a damn good one—got a French press at my station. Gimme a few minutes—" and he was gone. Many minutes went by, and I thought he had forgotten, which was all right, I know how these ERs can get. But a few minutes more and he returned with a steaming cup of black, opaque coffee, and he was right. Best damn cup of coffee I ever had in all our time spent at the U. The only good memory I have of that place. I'd made a mental note at the time to invest in a French press, but that, like countless things, it ended up on the back dusty recesses of my mind, till just recently.

I turned the burner on high before following Rocco downstairs to let him out. He leaped off the deck in a swan dive, landing just short of some half-dead shrubs and burrowed under them after an unseen rodent, maybe the resident chipmunk that's back to torture him. I stood at the patio door and watched him for a few minutes as he raced around the backyard, sniffing bushes, peeing on deck posts and tufts of winterized grass. We need another dog, I thought before turning around to head upstairs and finish my coffee. At that moment, these things happened almost simultaneously: a loud, muffled boom from outside, Rocco frantically clawing at the downstairs patio door, and the steady, high-pitched beep of the surge protector power strip from under my desk, warning me the power was out.

I let Rocco in and he tore past me up the stairs. I could hear him scramble into the bedroom and claw his way under the bed. Odd, I thought, though he is an odd dog who does odd things, all day, every day. Could the boom outside have been related to his frenetic actions and the power aborting? I briefly pondering the cause-effect, then just as briefly left my mind. I'd never get anything done if I sat around trying to make sense of my crazy mutt's behavior.

I walked into the furnace room and instinctively flipped the light switch. Duh. The sun pouring in through the east-facing windows partially spilled into the furnace room, but not far enough to reach the fuse box on the far wall. Like another appendage, my cellphone is always on my person; I dug it out of my jacket pocket and quickly flipped through the screens to the flashlight app. And Bob used to call my iPhone a useless, mind-numbing gadget—now, I felt like Macgyver as I held the white screen up to the fuse box, squinting at the rows of illuminated switches. They all looked the same. Running my finger down each row of hard plastic levers, maybe my sense of touch could better tell if a circuit had been tripped. Like an obedient little marching band, they were in perfect alignment.

It's a beautiful, sunny March morning—what could possibly have caused my power to go out? I wondered if my neighbors were also without power, but looking at my phone, it was too early to call. Instead, I went back upstairs, found my Xcel energy bill and the 800 number to call for power outages. The voice on the other end told me that I was the first to call from my area, that there were no area-wide outages reported, but they'll send someone out right away to check things out and get my power back on. By the way, the voice on the other end asked, did you happen to hear a loud boom or other loud, strange noise outside when the power went out? Yes! I cried, practically jumping up and down in acknowledgement. What's the connection? Well, it's likely that a squirrel bit through a line and blew a transformer. Winter is prime time for squirrels to be chewing through power lines and causing outages . . . So there may very well be a connection between the earlier, seemingly random events. . . Someone will be out in my neighborhood within the hour, I was told. Rocco crept out from the bedroom, still visibly shaking from his early morning wake-up boom, came and sat by my side like the most passive, obedient dog on Earth. If it had been a transformer blowing, it must have sounded really loud outside to freak my poor little sound-phobic pupster so terribly. He intermittently followed me around the house and hid in the bedroom all morning . . .

The first summer Bob and I moved to Wrenwood, a huge storm blew through and knocked out power for several days. We sat on our deck the first night, sweating our asses off, drinking beer, laughing and having a good ol' time, thinking for sure we'd have power by evening. Several hours passed, and  eventually, I announced that I just had to take a shower to try to cool off, and get ready to go to a wedding reception later that evening. I peeled the sweaty clothes clinging to my body, stepped into the dark shower stall and cranked the faucet. The water burst out in a full spray then quickly shriveled to a trickle, then nothing. What?! We've run out of water?! I suddenly comprehended, with blinding clarity, that we were no longer city folk with such modern conveniences as magic water. We have a well, with a pump that runs on electricity. Not only can we not shower, I quickly assessed, but we can't use the sinks, we can't flush the toilets. The water dispenser on the fridge won't work. No laundry. Anything that requires water was now impossible and suddenly, I felt a little panicky.

I put fresh clothes on and joined Bob outside again. We sat on the deck, drank more beer (why let that go to waste?), eventually noticed that we were surrounded by the low hum of what sounded like small engines. Or a swarm of killer bees. Curious, Bob walked up the road to find the source. He met a neighbor who informed us that our area is often one of the last to have power restored after a storm, so everyone around us, all ol' timers of the 'hood, have power generators hard-wired to their homes. They could run everything except their central air off their generators. We lost a fridge and freezer full of food that storm. Bob went to Mill's Fleet Farm shortly after and purchased a shiny red generator for Wrenwood. . .

Funny, all the things one can't do when the power goes out. One can't shower or flush toilets, at least not out here in the boonies, where our water comes from wells that operate on electric pumps. Can't make coffee. Can't connect to the internet. Can't do laundry. Can't open garage doors (I know there's a way to bypass the automatic opener, but I forgot how. Add that to my growing "Things-I-get-to-learn-because-Bob-isn't-here-to-do-them" list). Can't turn on lights, even though every time I entered a room or closet, I compulsively flipped the switch. Every flippin' time, pun intended. I didn't dare open the fridge—who knew how long I would be without power? It could be days! I need to be resourceful. Oh well, I wasn't really hungry anyhow.

So, I resorted to cleaning the house. Even that was a limited endeavor—I couldn't run the vacuum, which was the thing that most needed to be done. I haven't vacuumed since Gaia died, a week and a half ago, haven't had the heart to suck up the last remnants of my beautiful girl, lightly dancing around in furry tufts on my floor. But I could dust. And sweep. And fold the laundry that was in the dryer. And pick up and sort piles of miscellaneous junk that's been accumulating around the place—books and papers for school, bills to be paid, receipts to be filed. And balance my checkbook.

An hour ended up being two and a half by the time I heard the Xcel Energy truck rumbling down the road in front of our house. By this point, it had dipped to 55 degrees in the house. I had switched from my pajama bottoms into outdoor fleece pants and another layer under the jacket. I saw the truck drive by the house, turn around in the cul-de-sac and drive past the house again in the other direction, stopping a few doors down. A man in a bright yellow vest hopped out and crossed the road to another neighbor's property. Hey, wait a minute, I though, I was the first one to call—I get first dibs on power! I traded my slippers for a pair of shoes and trotted up the driveway and down the road a bit, till I spotted the yellow jacket among the shrubbery of my neighbor's backyard. I hoped he wasn't given the wrong address—I didn't want him to think nothing was amiss, and leave me stranded. I called out, asking if he happened to be here to check on the outage down the street, perhaps? He looked surprised.

I did not climb on roof to get shot; image stolen from interwebs.

"You're without power, too? I just got a call for these two properties—where are you at?" I pointed toward our house. "Well, I'm doing a quick preliminary check right now, but my guess is you all lost power due to a squirrel chewing through a line, which blew a transformer. Gimme a few minutes and you all should have power back, if that's the case. If not, I'll let you know what the next step'll be."

I wandered back to the house. Few minutes later, a loud beep from the carbon monoxide ejected Rocco from under the bed again, trembling and shaking. We had power again, but poor dog was a nervous mess. Few more minutes passed and a knock at the door. Rocco was so freaked out, he didn't erupt into his usual barking frenzy. Man in yellow jacket was on the front step.

"Your power back on?" He asked. I confirmed it was. "Pretty sure it was a squirrel that chewed through a line and blew the transformer, that's sure what it looks like anyhow," he said. "This is the worst time of year for this to happen." Would that account for the sound I'd heard earlier, I asked. "Oh you bet—it's pretty loud, like a gunshot. It was the one right up on the road in front of your house." He pointed at a pole up on the street, a few hundred feet beyond our house. No wonder my dog is so freaked, I said, bending down to rub Rocco, the velcro dog's head.  "No kidding—you should hear the big ones go off—like an explosion! Squirrels are persistent, destructive little buggers, but they usually don't survive a transformer blowing. Fries 'em instantly." He thanked me for my patience and headed off for his truck. And with that disturbing visual, I turned back into the house, started my laundry and took my nervous nelly of a dog for a long walk.