Important: Watch For Movement

From Pete at WRSA.

In a related note.

So there I was on my C-PAP machine at three o'clock this morning sleeping soundly when the power goes out and I wake up trying to catch my breath. Rosey and I fumble about for flashlights ("Batteries dead.") and candles ("Where in hell are the matches?").

Talk about not practicing what I preach.

Finally found some matches in the back of a drawer that hasn't been visited in months.

(Feeble defense: Female children, when home, use up matches for scented candles and read at night by flashlight and then leave them on. Supply exhausted, female children go back to college. Out of sight, out of mind, low on cash, not a priority. Yes, your honor, I know I'm still guilty.)

Go to phone to call in outage. Nothing, nada. Deader than Kelsey's nuts. First time THAT'S happened. (Who knew? Converting phone line to broadband puts it at mercy of power outages. When the juice goes down, the phone no longer works as it used to on the regular land line.) Forget to look at my watch which might have reassured me. Outside everything silent, black. No traffic on the road. Dog howls in distance. Thought passes instantly -- EMP?

(Unrelated. There had been an apparent drive-by of four rapid .22LR pistol shots earlier about 200 meters down street. Sheriff cars prowled, locking barn door after horse. Nothing found, they went back to their cooping down at the Waffle House. Memo to self: I've got to get us out of this rapidly declining neighborhood.)

Rose finds cell phone. Not dead. Sigh of relief. Another thought wells up. What if? Neighborhood, once familiar, now mostly inhabited by aliens of other cultures and nations. The 2 to 30 illegals who float with unpredictable fluctuation in and out of the house next door are my politest neighbors these days.

(NOTE: After a little difference of opinion on Uno de Mayo, 2006 -- the national strike day when our undocumented friends stayed home from work -- about the county noise ordinance was solved by the public field stripping, cleaning and reassembling of Hannah's M-4gery on the back deck within full view of the rowdy displays of machismo next door. I never even glanced at them. Muzzle remained pointed, when it was pointed, at my broken, overgrown swimming pool. Music volume dropped precipitously. Party went inside. Quiet as church mice ever since.)

So, I thought, if I have to defend in place, what with? True, I still have friends in the neighborhood, but few others I know enough to trust. Electronics (radios, field telephones, switchboards) packed in Faraday Cage containers. Some food (mostly rice and beans). Enough weapons and ammo to shoot house intruders but neighborhood defense is a different breed of cat. Everything else in caches around northern Alabama. Down to one vehicle (Toyota sedan and it EMP vulnerable). Another beat up 1999 Jimmy with the girls at college. It too is EMP vulnerable.

Have friends elsewhere in the state and in Georgia. Know where I want to go, but how, without plugs and points do I get there? What about the girls? Utter word meaning excrement.

Bad scare. I didn't go back to sleep, thinking. The power came back on within an hour.

Folks, like Pete says, you'd better see to your knitting right now. You never know when the zombies might arrive.

As for me, it is back to the editing process. May God grant me the extra time to offset that I have wasted with writer's block and intervening issues. If the book makes enough money, I'm OUTTA HERE.

Mike
III