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| Photo by Max Pixel |
Penn State has finally breached into March, starting the month with a well-needed spring break. Alas, I will not be catching a break this week... A terrible snow storm split a nearby tree in two, falling on top of a power line. Currently, I am writing this post while my house has no internet, power, heating, running water, or electricity, and I am making Wegmans my temporary base of operations. I woke up this morning desperately wanting to stay in bed and savor the warmth my body built up overnight, but then I realized I probably need to use the bathroom and eat food eventually. The good thing about Wegmans is probably the fact they have a microwave in their seating area. We managed to sneak our leftovers in and eat a proper breakfast without having to buy anything (because with no power, your refrigerator tends not to work). With full bellies, empty bowels, and an internet connection, my family and I are now relaxing, doing our work, and snacking on some sweets- I mean, brain-powering snacks.
This wasn't the first year I had to deal with four or more days without power - actually it usually happens once every year or so. Whenever we get a bad snowstorm, a tree falls over and cuts off our power. When we first experienced this, we had a solid week and a half of nothing. It was then I told my mom about the beauty of backup generators, but due to the storm, their prices skyrocketed. So we put it off still next year... obviously we never made that investment, because five years later we're at Wegmans with no power at home. Meanwhile, our neighbors are enjoying themselves in their lit homes and we have to live with listening to the rumbling of their generators, taunting us. Then again, I also suggested to get a snowblower too... but anyway, back to the power outage.
On the car ride to Wegmans, my brother and I were complaining about how poor the infrastructure is in our country, planing trees right under power lines and not expecting something bad to happen, or not pruning trees down so they don't block power lines, or not removing fallen trees until the next week... Living in a neighborhood with few residents tends to get you the short end of the stick when it comes to getting stuff fixed. It will usually take anywhere from 4-7 days just to remove a single tree and repair the damaged power line where I live out in semi-rural land, but all of my friends living in nice suburban areas would get their power restored overnight. Overnight. If we had to give our country a grade, America gets a "D+" in infrastructure (that's not a passing grade, by the way). I'm not going to go into the politics of why this is, but let this be some food for thought.
We might be brushing our teeth in public restrooms, and we may be warming up leftovers in the food court microwave, but at least we're having a good time. My brother sits across from me studying for SATs and doing java script homework for his programming class, and my mom is reading the bible (as it is Sunday, and she is dedicated in her faith). We might be deprived of some luxuries, but in exchange we're getting some pretty nice family time, and that makes everything feel better. There's a really warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from watching my family - whether it's helping my brother with his algebra, or talking about college, or making jokes together. My family usually just does their own thing, but when we come together like this, I really enjoy it. My spring break might not be the most comfortable, but I have my family to make up for it.
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