A “HUH?” Moment

My power went out last night around 2:00 am (technically speaking that is the morning but it was dark out so let’s call it night). I woke up to the sound of the battery backup for my computer beeping at me. So I got out of bed, turned off the battery backup and looked outside to see if it was storming. We were supposed to get a Nor’easter (Mother Nature’s great April Fool’s joke on New England) but it wasn’t supposed to start until later in the day.

Sure enough, it wasn’t storming at all outside. No wind, no snow…just a quiet night. So why is my power out? I could see a street light on down the block but the street light directly across the street was out. Also I didn’t see any lights on at the neighbor’s house and they usually have a light on all night.

I found my small flashlight so I could read the phone number on my electric bill and, using my cell phone, I called to report an outage. The automated answer, after jumping through all the hoops that make up an automated call, informed me that a work order had been processed.

I then headed back to bed because there wasn’t really anything else to be done. The call to the electric company probably could have waited until the morning but I wanted to wake up to having power rather than waiting for them to fix it at that point.

When I woke up, the power was restored so I set about re-setting the clocks and turning on my computer. As I was doing the dishes before breakfast (I usually leave the supper dishes in the sink for the next morning – has to do with having arthritis) (ok….the explanation is the hot water helps loosen up my hands if I wake up with swollen and sore hands – which doesn’t happen that often anymore but it is a habit left over from when my arthritis was really bad a couple of years ago – back to the story), I noticed that there was a voice mail on my phone. This struck me as odd since I hadn’t heard the phone ring and no one had buzzed in the last time I was on the phone.

I listened to the message and it was the electric company calling. The message they left was “please reset your main breaker and then call us back if the power is not restored and we will send out a work crew. Thank you!”. HUH???? My power was already back on and I didn’t do anything. Not that I would have known to do anything since my phone does not work when the power is out!!

This is why this is a “HUH?” moment. I have digital phone through my cable company so my phone does not work if the power is out. This is why I used my cell phone to call the electric company in the middle of the night. But, even if I didn’t have digital phone, I have all cordless phones that do not work if the power is out. I would think that the majority of the people in the United States have cordless phones these days that do not work when the power is out. So why in the world is the electric company calling me on my home number to tell me to reset the main breaker? Why waste the time to do this when the odds are very good that I won’t answer the phone or get the message since my phone does not work without power as is the case with the majority of the people in this country?

I was going to call the electric company today to explain how utterly silly this was and that they may want to change their methods of contacting their customers. But the Nor’easter finally did come roaring in and the electric company has been busy all day keeping up with the outages. I will call them on Monday or, better yet, e-mail them. Then if they e-mail back, I will be able to post it in my blog. It could be entertaining.

Sometimes I really wonder about things especially when experiencing  a true “HUH?” moment.