(Side note on the book: it's very inspiring -- I think we're going to give it a try next year. And Dawson, who is such a farmer at heart, is thrilled. If I could have aimed a camera just so in order to capture the instantaneous twinkle in his eye when I was telling him about it today, it would have been a truly amazing picture.)
Anyway, I heard soft footsteps around 11:45 pm (I'm telling you - it's a good book!) followed by a gentle turning of my doorknob. Aidan's head peeped around the door complete with slightly tousled hair, droopy eyes, and a shmushed face from someone who was just in a deep sleep.
"Mummy. It's dark in there."
"Okay, buddy. I'll fix it."
Figuring either Tucker or Keats had turned of the nightlight (it's happened before), I purposefully strode into the hallway to flip the light on. Nothing. Then I tried the bathroom light. Nothing. I peered down the stairs -- very dark with no sign of the "night lights" we keep on to navigate the house during the late night hours. (Let's face it, if you have little ones you're going to do some night wanderings. I would rather have a tiny night light on "just in case" than blind myself at 3 am from flipping on lights since I'm still too chicken to walk through the dark.)
I snuggled Aidan in my bed since our room still had lights, TV, and everything running as normal. I went downstairs to check the fuse box. No change.
I went back upstairs and called Scott, who was currently on duty in the MICU. I let him know what was going on and asked if he would be able to contact our landlord on the way home in the morning. Some of the nurses working with him suggested calling Met-Ed, our electric company, during his next break. They all assured us issues like this are almost always the power companies fault. Scott offered to call Met-Ed while I took care of Aidan and now Keats, who appeared around the door with a "Mommy, Aidan is lost." Of course, upon spying Aidan on the bed, Keatsy squealed, "Oh! You're not lost Aidan! You're here. I'm coming up, too."
Scott called back a little later to let me know that Met-Ed would be coming by in order to investigate the lines. At that moment, the lights came back on with a crazy, manic brightness. Before I could say "Hey!" they dimmed way down to less than night-light power. Crazy. So, anyway, Met-Ed told Scott they might need to see inside the house, and then again, they might not. He encouraged me to go back to sleep and just listen for a knock at the door. Uh, sure. A few moments after he said that, Tucker's face appeared around the doorway and he said, "Hey mom? There's something weird going on out there. I'm going to hang out with you guys." Now, there were three little Rutherford's snuggled in my bed.
I decided to call Ryan and Laura since they live on the west coast. I figured it might be 2:30 here, but 11:30 there shouldn't be too late for a crazy couple, don't you think? Well, I didn't think about the fact that they can do the math and thus, scared them to death since it really isn't common for me to call in the wee hours of the morning. After the explanations, etc, we settled down for a late winter's chat since I knew I needed to be awake for the Met-Ed guy.
About 45 minutes later (for those who have lost track of the time, it's now 3:15 am), I heard the Met-Ed truck arrive in all it's flashing-lights glory. My thoughts? "Yikes. The neighbors are sure going to love that!" Sure enough, there was a soft tapping at the door ( like I would have heard that if I were asleep) which was followed by 60 minutes of in and out of our home as the line-man tried to figure out exactly where the problem was. Meanwhile, the three little Rutherfords have tumbled out of their -- er, rather, my bed -- and are following the lineman everywhere, peppering questions all the way. After some experiments and night wanderings to every GFI in the house, it was determined it was ours to fix. Lovely. Isn't this where we started? Lots of technical info followed about outside breakers, two lines, neutralizing lines, and corrosion. But the end result was the same. We were back to where we started.
Now, it is 4:15 am. I took my three little men up the stairs to call their father back to let him know that I still needed him to call our landlord on his way home, which was what I had thought should be done back around midnight. So, I tucked the three little Rutherford's into their beds with a Mag Light as a night light and crawled back into my bed.
Needless to say, the electrician had our outside breaker replaced within 2 hours the next morning and our power has been wonderfully dependable ever since.
I do love electricity.
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