Power Outage

Walking home along St. Clair today, two police cruisers blared their sirens and blazed through red lights. When I turned up to No Frills, there were the two police cruisers, sitting in the parking lot. Four officers were out, talking to about 8 men in No Frills uniforms, plus several other men of of various heights and ages.

I tried to go into No Frills to pick up groceries for dinner. A woman said to me, "They are closed. They may open again in a couple of hours. They said there is a power outage." Indeed, the supermarket was dimmed inside and on the door was a hastily scrawled note, "Closed Due To Power Outage".

Power outage? No one else on St. Clair was having power problems. I live up the street and I didn't have a power outage when I got home.

But then I suppose if half your staff is out in the parking lot talking to the police, that's a sort of power outage. They didn't actually say it was electrical power they were out with. I hadn't thought to use power outage to blanket anything. You know, like wardrobe malfunction, or irreconcilable differences.

So the next time I don't want to do the dishes, I'll leave them in the sink and say, I had a power outage. Or if I'm seeing my doctor and can't quite pinpoint how I'm feeling, I'll say, I'm having a kind of power outage. Or if I don't feel like having sex, I'll say to The Man, Sorry dear, I'm having a power outage tonight.

Works for me.