Party In the Dark

So last night something interesting happened. At about 9pm, the power in our apartment complex went out. It briefly tried to come back on, but it immediately failed again. For another hour, it failed to come back on.

Tucker, having just beat me in tennis again, was over at our apartment. With no more television, video games, and computer to entertain us, we simply went outside. Ashley grabbed a couple of lawn chairs, and we sat out on the porch. It was a beautiful evening with very pleasant weather, and we had a nice little discussion.

And a funny thing happened - a few other people in our building come outside too, trying to figure out what had happened to the power. Our new friend from upstairs stopped and had her dinner, joining in our conversation.

Ashley and I also met another one of our building mates, a girl from upstairs who has been there since November. I've probably seen her a couple times since then, but it took the power outage for us to actually meet her.

And I got to thinking - I barely know any of our neighbors. Probably because, whenever I'm home, I'm sitting on the couch with the TV on. I'm never outside to see the people come and go, meeting people that I don't know. We have a porch, but I haven't spent an hour out there since we moved in sometime during the Jurassic Period.

I wouldn't mind doing that a couple times a month - getting out the chairs and sitting out there. Maybe grill some burgers and have some conversation. Maybe next time a couple more people will stop by and talk.

I hate it when the power goes out, but last night made it pretty cool.