freshy fresh fresh mini trash can

At around 4:30 (Eastern Time) on August 14th, we pulled off the highway to get gas in London, Ontario, being nearly in the red. We pulled up to the end of the exit ramp, and realized that the reason it kind of looked like chaos was because the traffic light was out. Shrugging, we continued to the Shell station, where we were informed we couldn't get gas because they didn't have power. We debated about whether we had enough gas to get to the next stop, and decided that rather than risk having to walk miles and miles (--sorry, kilometers and kilometers) in the heat, it would be better to wait.


So we waited and waited and waited. We staked out a hotel, banking on having to shower while it was still light out. We purchased cold water and word puzzle books from a quickstop place across from the Shell station which was staffed by two Asian women, one older, one younger, who squabbled over everything in another language and calculated totals, tax, and exchange rates on a little tiny calculator in the half-dark. We tried calling the place where we had reservations from a payphone that for some reason was working. We turned on the car radio periodically to hear the same things about the blackout over and over and over and over again. A man with a video camera was weaving his way through the slow-moving traffic, and I prepared a small statement in case he asked my opinion of the situation, but he never reached us.


Four and a half hours. It was starting to get dark. There were impatient families, and impatient men on cellphones, and impatient senior citizens buying sandwiches from a darkened restaurant. There were hundreds of lucky, gas-having cars inching through the stoplight. There were impatient honeymooners, only halfway to their destination with expensive reservations looming. There were folks chased from the hotel by lack of light, wandering the streets and talking to stranded families, senior citizens, and honeymooners. Power came on at the Petrol Canada station across the street. Power came on at the Sunoco station catecorner to Shell. ... Power came on at the Shell station. I wanted a chorus of cheers to go up, but there was no chorus of cheers. The cadre of gas-needing travelers which had formed in the parking lot of the Shell station (we figured that we were their leaders, having been there nearly from the beginning) swung into motion, yanking the nozzles out of their cradles and jammed them into their gas tanks, probably cursing themselves for not having done so in the 4 1/2 hours they had been sitting there, so as to not waste precious seconds once the power was back on. Gas glugged and the weary travelers crossed their arms and tapped their feet. The attendants cleaned windshields. Credit cards were swiped, nozzles returned to cradles, sheepish smiles exchanged. We got back on the road.


The radio had said that they returned power to big cities and were working their way to smaller ones. London was a smaller city, hence Toronto would have power. We would drive to Toronto and find a hotel. We drove for a while - we had become numb to the passage of time, so it could have been hours, could have been 10 minutes. The highway widened. Cars were coming out of nowhere, whizzing past us. The sun had set, and darkness drooped around our car, cut only by headlights. City street exits were popping up every half-mile or so. A huge apartment building glowed unevenly with candlelight. We were in Toronto. We were in Toronto and there was no power. There was a huge city surrounding us, citydwellers driving past us with city destinations in mind, and we could not even see the side of the road. The side of the six-lane highway. Surely there were darkened hotels feet (sorry, meters) from us, but we could not see them, and we would not stay in them without power. Then, we were no longer in Toronto. I had taken the wheel, I had gotten us out of Toronto without seeing 98% of it, and now I was rather lost in what could easily have been another, smaller city. Sitting on the side of the road, map taking up the whole front seat, illuminated by the carlight.


We picked a direction and drove. A Staples was lit up. Further, a car dealership. A very dark street party was going on, and we wove slowly through crowds of people. We stopped at a convenience mart that was lit up like a circus, shocking to our eyes. A man was inside. He appeared to be closing. He would know where a hotel was. I stood by the gate that surrounded the store, in front of the door. I caught his eye and waved. He waved back, and went about his business. He was pretending that he did not know that I wanted his attention. I was just being friendly, he pretended to think. I waved again as he walked past, and he pretended to be disturbed by my forthright friendliness, and went about his business.


After we gave up on bad-actor convenience store guy, we decided to just keep going for lack of a place to stay. And then, at the very edge of town, we stumbled across a Comfort Suites. We decided to stay there, despite the exorbitant rate and the lack of power, figuring that hey, it was Canadian money and the power might be back on soon anyway. They gave us a candle which we sat in a teacup in the middle of the room. I decided to shower in the dark, when we heard the surge of power. We didn't notice it, really, until we turned and saw the clock blinking, because all the lights and appliances had been shut off to prevent a power surge when it came back on. So, for the second time that day, we celebrated the power's return.


We got up early the next morning and kept going.