Everything Is Connected to the Cosmic Generator
Like love, lust and faith, electricity is largely invisible, proving once again that the best things in life are mostly unseen. Then again, in the dark, everything’s unseen.
“Are we having a blackout?” someone asks.
“No,” I say.
“Then why is it so dark?” someone says.
“Just practicing,” I say.
One day, California is booming. The next day it is dark. We are the Fiona Apple of states, going from mega-star to obscurity in a matter of minutes.
“Anybody watching this?” I ask, gesturing to the TV.
“Huh?”
“Anybody watching this?” I ask again.
Click.
I wander around our little house clicking off light switches, turning down the thermostat, silencing TVs.
The kids turn lights on. Click. I turn lights off. Click. Every once in a while, we achieve total darkness, a practice blackout. We’re like the Little House on the Prairie. Click. Click. Click.
“Dad, I think you’re getting carried away,” my lovely and patient older daughter says.
“Never,” I say.
“Yeah, Dad, you’re getting carried away,” the little girl says.
So they turn on the lights again, then I turn them off again. Over and over it goes. My parents did it. Now I do it. Been going on like this since Edison.
“You know, this costs money,” Thomas Edison used to tell his kids, turning off a hallway light.
“It does?” his kids asked.
“Every penny counts,” Edison said.
Problem is, kids bask in brightness. If it were up to them, every light in the house would be on at all times, till we looked like Dodger Stadium or a major airport, visible from outer space.
Click. Click. Click.
It makes kids feel safe and secure having all the lights on at once. It makes me feel poor.
And in the back of my mind, I believe that if we save electricity now, we’ll have enough for Super Bowl Sunday, the biggest holiday of the year.
“We’ve got to conserve power,” the boy says.
“That’s the spirit,” I say.
Of course, electricity doesn’t work that way. You can’t store it away like kerosene or creamed corn. But in the back of my mind--where I keep all my unreasonable hopes and expectations--I believe you can.
In the back of my mind, I believe there will be an extra megawatt or two if I keep turning off all the overhead lights in the world.
In the back of my mind, I believe the Cubs will win their division. That Sinatra is still alive. Lassie, too. There’s a lot of weird stuff kicking around in the back of my mind.
“I don’t get this,” my older daughter says.
“Get what?”
“Why there isn’t enough electricity,” she says.
Here’s why there isn’t enough electricity:
1. California hasn’t built a major power plant in 10 years.
2. Government is never as smart as the private sector.
3. Your automatic bread maker kicks on at 4 a.m.; your gigantic grind-and-brew coffee maker kicks on at 6.
4. There’s been little rain in the Pacific Northwest, which relies on hydropower to send surplus energy our way.
5. California hasn’t built a major power plant in 10 years.
Did I mention the power plants?
Anyway, someone was asleep at the wheel, and now you’re supposed to turn down your thermostat while giant Internet farms in Northern California gorge themselves on power supplied by companies based in Houston. Good system, if you’re a rich Texan.
So in California, electricity remains in short supply, reminding us that the magic nectars of modern life should never be taken for granted. A glass of chilled wine with dinner. A late-night rerun of “MASH.” A warm bed.
“Remember two months ago when we were all laughing at Florida?” I ask my wife.
“No,” she says.
“Me neither,” I say.
Meanwhile, my friend Paul, a true California visionary if ever there was one, bought a portable generator two years ago and tucked it away in his garage, next to the golf clubs and that bike he never rides.
Well, OK, so his wife made him buy the generator. But he’s a visionary just the same. He had foresight enough to marry her.
In any case, this makes Paul officially one of the power generators, one of those profiteers you hear so much about. Smug. Rich. Only faintly sympathetic to the plights of others.
“So, you been testing your little generator?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
“You have, haven’t you?”
He tested it. I know him. I know his wife. He tested the generator.
“I’ll be over,” I tell him.
“When?”
“Sunday,” I say. “Just in case there’s a blackout. I’m coming over Super Bowl Sunday.”
Turns out Paul’s portable generator is in the shop for repairs. For while it was sitting there in the garage, making him feel all smug and secure, the gas line was clogging up with sediment, the way gas lines do after a year or two of idle time--a little at a time, invisible to the eye.
Not only are the best things in life invisible; the worst ones are, too.
“Maybe we should go to Vegas,” I tell him.
“For the Super Bowl?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “For the Super Bowl.”
“OK, but I’ll have to bring the kids.”
Click.
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Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.
