I woke up to one of the most disturbing sounds a homeowner can hear: the sump pump’s alarm. Thunder cracked; the rain fell hard. Gulping, I pictured our basement’s impending doom.
This could not be handled alone. I jostled my husband. No response. I jostled him again.
“Humpf?” he said.
“The sump pump alarm is going off!” I responded, in a tone I had erstwhile reserved for “I’m having the baby NOW!”
I’d like to say he responded with alacrity. He did not. (History repeated itself.)
“What time is it?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “The power’s out!”
“Oh,” he said. There was a pause. “Wait, what time is it?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” I said again. “The power is OUT.”
We went through this Abbot and Costello routine a few more times. It occurred to me that if we are ever unfortunate enough to someday be victims of a home invasion in the middle of the night, my husband will ask me “Do we know these people?” 20 times before processing the situation. But I digress.
We went downstairs and peered down into the sump pump pit with all the baffled consternation with which we always regard the sump pump pit.
“It’s fine,” my husband said. “The battery’s charging.”
He plodded back to the stairs. I looked at his receding figure. I looked back at the pit. I gave up and went to bed, where I spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling and fantasizing about penthouse apartments.
In the morning, we saw that the basement had held. As we walked around town, we began to realize how bad the storm had been. Our sump pump concern was nothing. We saw a sixty-foot tree lying across two neighbors’ lawns, having missed each house by mere feet, and a huge willow tree toppled in a neighbor’s front yard. We commiserated with those who had had damage, and checked on others.
Given that we live in southern Montgomery County, we began to prepare for the long haul. (It’s a rare outage here that doesn’t last for days.) Neighbors compared notes on living in Honduras or Mozambique, where power outages are, apparently, less lengthy.
I broke out the lanterns and the battery-operated radio from my Homeland Security drawer. My husband participated in a mass battery-buying frenzy at Strosnider’s. We occupied ourselves with searches for ice, for the coolest spot in the basement, and for elusive PEPCO trucks. Our children bemoaned the loss of wifi. We got sweatier and grouchier. So we dealt with the crisis the way so many of us do in the Bethesda area: We went out to eat.
The good news: we could always find some respite. My daughter saw three movies in the three days. The bad news: we’re on Day Four.
And as the hot days melted into midweek, everyone was united by one thought: Enough, already.
