Hurricane Wilma Afterthoughts

Now that life is slowly getting back to normal, I tend to think back on the damage & inconvenience that Wilma caused and is causing.

Power

Being without power is not a life altering situation (unless you happen to be on artificial respiration, or in an iron lung) but for the most part it is extremely inconvenient. When the power was out, we were hot, unable to surf the Net, no TV, no gasoline! We took to walking around the neighborhood for entertainment.

After the walk we had several candles lit and listened to the battery powered radio. We got to see the stars at night since the majority of the city was without power. It was dark, very dark. As we ate a candlelit dinner of Chef Boyardee, I realized that candles aren't that great of a light source. They flicker and waver about. Eating processed pasta was tough enough but I began to think about our ancestors that had no electricity. Can you imagine eating a big hunk of mutton by candlelight? Not a fun prospect!

When there's no light around for miles, it's fucking dark as shit! Candles or no candles, you ARE going to be messy. Food is going to spill, crumbs scatter. Now I can understand why the Black Death ravaged the majority of the world population. It was dark as Hell and there were crumbs everywhere! That inevitably led to the continued prosperity of the rat population. Rats never had it so good!

I was sitting there trying to enjoy my processed pasts & meat sauce and many a piece of food fell on the floor. Do you think I am going to scramble around on the floor in the dark trying to find a greasy morsel of food? Nope. I was going to wait in the morning. Then, in the morning, I was preoccupied with trying to fuel my car, going to work (we have a generator). When I got home, I saw the bit 'o gunk and I threw it out. Yeah, that was now.

Turn back the clock a few hundred years. I'm savoring a leg of lamb, venison or mutton, whichever I could get a hold of, I drop several pieces on the floor of my hovel (aka Medieval condo) and leave it there for the morning. In the dark of night, a band of rats & roaches come and abscond all the dropped pieces of food. Yes, I have inadvertently invented the world's first natural vacuum cleaner but the price humanity would have to pay for my innovation! The Fates have a cruel sense of irony!

Darkness & crumbs. Two little seeming inconsequential items that almost destroyed the human race. It only took more than 25 million death for people to figure out that sweeping shit up and turning on the lights would make for a healthier living environment.

Fire

Since I had nothing much to do several nights, I began to trace why I didn't have electricity. I mentally traced back the path the current takes to get to my home. I ended up, to no surprise, at the power plant. In my mental journey, my power plant was coal fired.

That got me to thinking that for all our advances we are basically completely dependent on fire. We have all this great technology but when you really dissect it down to its most basic elements, you end up with...fire. That's really all we are! Apes that have mastered fire!

We have death by fire. Bombs & more bombs. We have death by a shitload of fire....nuclear bomb. We kill people with guns. Guns shoot pieces of metal propelled by....fire. In the olden days, we dispensed the fancy trapping of civilization and we just burned people to death.

Ahhh but what about electricity? The whole thing that started this? Electrical plants are based on fire. Coal plants burn coal, gas plants burn gas, nuclear plants steam water (OK fine, there's no fire there BUT there would be IF there was anything flammable around!).

Cars, they run on fire inside cylinders. Airplanes, same thing except the motor goes in circles instead of up & down.

Seems like our civilization ain't that advanced. So much for diversification! We found one great thing and we use it for everything. BAM! Send a hurricane with a fuckload of water & wind and we all saw how great our fire worked!

Forget about inventing new powerful computers and more types of mechanical things. Get back to basics! REAL basics. Find something else to power our existence!


Tips
Finally, a few more tips that I learned from Wilma:

• If you decide to ride out a major hurricane and the power goes out. Just throw out all meat & meat by-products immediately
• Have lots of paper towels. After a few days when NO ONE has power and there's no hot water, you gotta take a shower somehow. Wet a paper towel and wipe your asshole, armpits & crotch. Clean as new!
• Know where your flashlight is. Really, practice with your eyes closed. THINKING you know where it is when the power goes out is like The Pope, useless but entertaining to watch.
• Use your cellphone sparingly. When the cellphone towers run out of battery power, you'll have no signal
• Don't drive. Gas stations also have no power
• You WILL make friends with our neighbors. Go ahead hang out outside with everyone else. It's too hot & boring to stay inside.