The storm that wasn’t supposed to be a storm for us until it became a storm for us swept in on Saturday night.
As late as late on Saturday morning, Matthew was forecast to trundle north as far as Cape Hatteras and then make a sharp right and barrel out to sea sparing us more rain.
He didn’t.
Instead, Mr. Matthew decided to mosey on up the coast and check out what Miss Carol and me were doing for the weekend.
Saturday morning, Weather Underground was predicting 20 mph winds and a 60% chance of rain. By afternoon the prediction had changed to 45 mph winds and a 90% chance of rain. By midnight I awoke to torrential rain pounding the house and winds that were rockin’ and rollin’ her on her stilts. I lay in the heaving bed and bedroom and silently cursed Matthew.
Because we live on an island the power almost immediately goes out in any storm and Matt was no exception. We lost power Saturday evening and didn’t get it back until Wednesday night, a full day after our generator arrived and I hooked it up.
In those long powerless hours I learned a lot about myself and life-
Being without the internet is truly a hardship. As much as it pains me to say that, it’s true. I can do without some things, but it turns out that facebook and e-mail and youtube aren’t among them.
No water equals no toilets. Who knew? Or maybe I should have. All the years living in Sandbridge we had city water so no matter what you could at least go to the bathroom when the lights were out. Not now, not when we get our water from a well whose pump requires electricity. (Side story- no water equals no showers which equals zero sexual attraction- apparently something about the smell?)
Camping in your living room is fun. It is. For about the first 10 hours and then the newness and excitement rapidly declines and resigned suckiness sets in. You can only make so many meals on a small propane stove before your repertoire is exhausted.
Reading by candlelight is frustrating and can lead to book fires. ‘Nuff said about that.
But the biggest, most important thing that I learned in the aftermath of MattMan the hurricane?
ORDER THE GODDAMN GENERATOR!!!!
That’s right. A couple of weeks before the storm that wasn’t supposed to be a storm and became a storm, we had a different storm and lost power for about 36 hours. After that little stint, I swore I’d buy a generator and hook it up to our house panel. I even did the research and decided on which one I wanted, which generator would be the best bang for the buck.
And then I sat on it.
I figured, what the hell? It’s mid-October, hurricane season’s almost over, right? I can wait, right?
Right?
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