DISASTER DAY #3 - THE MORNING

Even though I give in to the darkness around 9:30 on Friday night, I can't sleep.  Not really.  I'm uncomfortable on the makeshift bed, and the lack of sound is unnerving.  I understand now what people mean when they say "The silence is deafening" because it's so quiet that my ears hurt.  They feel full and swollen inside.

(Yup -- it is damn dark except for the utility truck)

I don't really sleep, though.  Like last night, I have terrible dreams that seem to go on and on and on thought I've only been dozing for maybe twenty minutes ... a half hour ... not much more.  Finally around five a.m., I believe I might as well get up. 

This is when I hear it.  Beep.  Beep.  Beep.

There's a utility truck outside of my house.  I look out and can only see their taillights on my street.  Maybe I'll get power today.  That would be swell. No such luck, though.  The utility company moves around the corner (where it stays all day long off and on), and nary a shimmer of light.  Which also brings me to daylight.  I am expecting light, anticipating relief, but the air is still thick and humid.  The fog descends like a final kick in the crotch -- Despite it being seven a.m., I will not be seeing "daylight" any time soon.

At a respectable hour, despite the grayness of the outside and inside, I get dressed, dismantle the make-shift bed I'd set up, and wait until the bank opens three towns away because there isn't another branch open in the explosion zone.  On my way to the bank, it is so foggy and gray that very little light is shining, so I pull into a side street to take a picture.  Ironically, the side street turns out to be the damn electric company (of course); stopping at Mass Electric as Mass Electric has stopped on me. 

I expect the bank to be open at eight a.m., but it doesn't open until nine, so I swing over to Dunkins and grab a tea and a pumpkin muffin, then I head back to the parking lot to wait. The deserted parking lot.  The lot is for a relatively large strip mall, so I park kind of away from the bank, but all by myself in the empty, empty lot.  Alone.  No other cars.  Nope.  Not a single one.  I intend to leave the car running so I can charge my cell phone battery, and I don't want to annoy anyone.  All alone.  Just me, my tea, the muffin, and my car.

Until ... an SUV pulls into the lot and parks right next to me.  As a matter of fact, the driver parks so close that I think she is going to sideswipe my front quarter-panel.  Really, lady.  What. The. Fuck.  Then another car comes in, swerves close enough to almost take off my front end, then backs into the spot behind me.

Let me remind readers -- I am ALL ALONE IN A HUGE MALL PARKING LOT.  The woman backing in gets so close that I panic and throw my car into drive, zooming across two empty lanes and parking several spaces away in another empty quadrant of the lot.  I start sipping my tea when a guy in a truck pulls up and parks ... you guessed it ... right next to me.  He is then followed by a white SUV that parks ... guess again ... on the other side of me.

Once more, folks: The entire rest of the damn lot is wide, wide, WIDE open.

By the time the bank opens fifteen minutes later, I am in an even pissier mood than I already was when I arrived.  People aggravate the hell out of me, the lack of electricity aggravates the hell out of me, and not knowing what the day will bring aggravates the hell out of me.  But, I have my tea, a muffin, and now I have cash, so it's all good.  I'm feeling lucky.  I pull away and leave the freaks in the parking lot behind me.

Seriously, it's like I am living the Weekend of Weird.  And maybe I am, as I'll continue next time.