Oh What a Night!
It was two nights ago and I was watching the Men’s NCAA National Championship game. I was in good spirits because earlier the Cubs had won their opening day game against the Braves. (I turned it off after the top of the 1st knowing that they would win. If you try telling me that they lost by more than 10, I won’t believe you.)
At about 10pm, the NCAA game was nearing its end. Butler was down by one, and they took a timeout with 13 seconds left. This was so exciting that I decided to get up on my feet. They came out of the timeout and got back onto the court when…
BOOM!
… a lightning bolt hit the telephone pole located about 20 feet from where I was standing. No joke.
I love watching thunderstorms, so that night I had the shades open. At the moment of impact there was a thunderous boom and a huge flash of light that I saw out of the corner of my eye. I looked out the window to see sparks pouring down from the telephone pole.
Probably thinking that I finally blew up the oven, my girlfriend ran out of the bedroom startled and wondering what just happened. I told her about the lightning bolt and pointed at the telephone pole, which was now slightly on fire.
I was excited. This was closest I ever came to lightning, and I immediately thought of the Saved by the Bell episode where Screech got hit by lightning and could tell the future. Even though I didn’t get hit, maybe I was close enough to the lightning bolt to have gained at least a little psychic ability. “I’m going to buy a lotto ticket tomorrow,” I thought to myself. But then I quickly realized a problem.
The electricity was out.
With 13 seconds left in one of the greatest NCAA final games in history, a damn lightning bolt struck the nearest telephone pole and cut the electricity. It was like something that would happen on According to Jim.
About fifteen minutes later the fire department showed up, and a lone fireman walked up to the telephone pole and shone his flashlight towards the top of it. I thought to myself, “I can be a great help!” So I went downstairs and approached the fireman with vital information.
“That pole was hit by lighting.”
This was no help at all. They had undoubtedly gotten a phone call about a telephone pole getting hit by lightning, and it was obvious that the telephone pole with the tiny electrical fire was the one that was hit. He responded with,
“I know.”
Hmmm. Awkward. I thought I would lighten the mood.
“The electricity went out with 13 seconds left in the basketball game. You think I can get a discount from Comcast?”
I don’t know what I expected him to say here. Maybe deep down I was hoping that he would say, “That’s hilarious! You know, my brother is a Hollywood agent and he’s looking for some talent! A fresh voice like yours would be perfect! Here’s his number!” But that wasn’t the case. His response was,
“I don’t know.”
(Four second pause)
“We got called here with three seconds left in the game.”
I replied, ”bummer.”
“………..”
I didn’t know what to say. Should I thank him for his service? Should I tell him that he’s a hero? After standing there for an uncomfortable twenty seconds, I decided to just say, “good night.”
With no electricity and no battery operated cable televisions laying around, I went to sleep. The next thing I know…
BEBEBEBEBEBEBEBE!!!!!!!!
It’s four a.m. and the fire alarm is going off. Me and the girlfriend wake up in a panic since we’ve never heard the fire alarm go off before… which is obvious considering how we both reacted to it.
My emergency reaction was to get up and run to the bathroom, because I really had to go. While in there I could hear our neighbors evacuating the building. When I got out of the bathroom, the girlfriend was on a chair, disconnecting our smoke detector. Unfortunately the smoke detector was not the alarm that was going off… it was the apartment complex’s fire alarm.
So basically, in the event of a crisis, my initial emergency response is to use to the bathroom, and her initial emergency response is to disconnect any device that is warning us of the emergency. I don’t see fireman in our occupational futures.
We quickly got dressed and headed outside. Since I was hurrying, I didn’t really pay attention to my wardrobe until we were surrounded by our neighbors. I quickly realized that I was wearing pajama pants and a seven year old University of Illinois long sleeved shirt with a huge hole in the nipple.
Understand that this fire drill is the first time I have seen many of the people that live in my building, and my attire was that of a struggling stripper. To make things worse, a majority of my neighbors looked pretty nice. People were wearing khaki’s, polo shirts, dress pants… I felt like a homeless guy that snuck into a J-Crew photo shoot. I don’t know why they were dressed so nice. Maybe they have special fire alarm outfits. Maybe everyone in my building works at Abercrombie. Either way they looked great, and I was exposing a nipple.
Eventually we got the clear from the firemen and were allowed to go back inside. Once in the apartment, we tried to reconnect the smoke detector with no luck. After a few minutes we decided to go to bed and worry about it in the morning. Unfortunately once every minute the smoke detector would beep, and even though it was in the other room, it was loud and completely annoying. So we removed the battery from the smoke detector, placed it next to the bed, and layed back down. Then a minute later…
beep
My girlfriend, without moving, simply said, “how?”
I laughed, put the alarm under a huge pile of clothing, and went to sleep.