Dear Great State of Texas,
You fail.
I'm sure that there are other states right now where the entire temperature across the whole place is below freezing. But I'm pretty sure THOSE states aren't suffering state wide power outages in major cities. THEIR grids can handle everybody running their heaters.
You can't.
So we get fifteen minutes of power, then forty five minutes of no power, because you can't handle everybody being cold. The result, of course, is that we can't make ourselves food. We can't keep warm. We don't even have light.
Yes, I have to say that you do, indeed, fail at life.
Fix the fucking problem. I'm freezing. I am hungry. I want something warm in my stomach. I can't feel my toes. Choo Choo will no come from under the covers. I can't even read properly because it's overcast outside and I don't have any light with which to read. So what do I do with myself?
I wait for the power to come back on so I can write this.
Texas, you fucking suck.
It's so great that all of the trouble making, law breaking, red neck, inbred morons down in Georgetown have power. Small towns, it seem, are doing just fine. But as for the sophisticated, free spirited, loving and educated, music creating artists of the Greater Austin area...we get to freeze and starve.
For the love of God, the fucking traffic lights aren't even working. Do you know how many times today I've heard horns blaring and tires screeching because the traffic lights are out and I happen to live a ten minute walk from the most dangerous intersection in the entire city? (By your own research, too! I'm not just saying it to say it!) Lots of people are going to be hurt or killed today because you didn't set up the system to handle people using their heaters.
Heaters in winter. Who the fuck would have thought Texans would want to use their heaters in winter.
Fix the fucking problem, damn it.
Sincerely,
Chanel
PS. I am really pissed off at you right now. REALLY pissed off. I may never forgive you for this. I may just decide to move to Canada.
When I was really little my Dad used to tell me this joke. I forget exactly how it went, but the punchline was some guy yelling, "Everything's big in Texas." Well, I toke this quite literally. I imagined that Texas was some kind of land of giants and every was huge. The hamburgers and coffee cups and everything would be like 5x's bigger. My dad got a kick out of this, and when we were driving through Texas on our way from Ohio to Arizona, he made it a point to buy me this giant toothbrush, which, of course, I thought was just a normal size toothbrush in Texas. Needless to say, I was amazed by it.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this story has little to do with your frustration over your power failures, but at least it's about Texas, and you can also consider it a retroactive response to make you feel better about feeling tiny in your dream in your last post.
Bryan, that made me laugh so hard I snorted. Of course, that's not the first time I've heard of someone being told that everything was bigger in Texas, but that's the first time I've ever heard such a literal understanding of it. There are a lot of stereotypes about Texas that I hear when I'm in Maryland. Do you know how many times I've been asked what the name of my horse is and how do I ride him around when it's raining? And people not believing I'm from Texas because of some stupid thing where all Texas are redheaded and fat. Where do people hear this stuff?
ReplyDeleteNot that I want it to stop. You should tell everybody that everything is bigger in Texas. I love the laugh I get out of the people who are curious enough to ask.
I think they must have fixed something...the Power is back on and it has been for almost an hour now...Maybe they took my anger to heart.
Funny you should mention the horse thing. Nearly every state in the union has urban areas and rural areas, but it seems everyone's impression of every other state is based entirely on the rural areas. When I told people in Arizona that I was from Ohio, they all assumed that I lived on a farm, when actually I'm just a few miles outside of Cleveland and I wouldn't hardly have a clue what to do with myself on a farm. When I tell people in Ohio that I was living in Arizona, they assume that I was on a ranch somewhere with tumbling tumble weeds, when actually I was in downtown Phoenix with not a single tumble in sight.
ReplyDeleteMoral of the story: People are pretty dumb.
Good grief! I'm sorry about all the drama! Hopefully the power will stay on so you can eat and be warm again.
ReplyDeleteTexas, you are on THE LIST! You're right next to Blogger and Chanel's HPFF website! Watch yourself, or be destroyed!
Bryan, when I think of Ohio I think of the song. And that means Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame and Cleveland. I did not even know you guys had farm acres. And the only thing I know of Arizona is In N' Out Burger, the Grand Canyon, and what I read about it in Twilight. Didn't know they had ranches up there. Just a lot of cops that deport you if you have a funny accent or tan skin. Proving, of course, that people are dumb.
ReplyDeleteCandice, I never even thought to add Texas to the list, but I concur! To the list it goes! Better watch yourself, Texas! Apparently this whole thing is a result of a broken pipe and a frozen pile of snow at two Central Texas electric generating plants. One little pipe and a pile of snow turned ice, and the whole state goes haywire.
Definitely a small world. I was on the phone with my sister listening to her complain about the black-outs in Dallas. After the call I check my reading list, saw your comment on Simple Dude's blog post, checked your blog, and read about the rolling black-outs. Really is a small world!
ReplyDeleteI really don't understand this intentional power-outage stuff. Exactly how is using heaters different from using air conditioners in summer?
ReplyDeleteAnother thing to gripe about: My wifey works at a hospital. Hospitals are supposed to be exempted from the rolling blackouts. Hers was not. They had no power for 45 minutes. Best part? The back-up generators were not working.
We had some ice storms a few years back and power was out three days. It totally sucked. Our heat is natural gas, but it doesn't do any good without electricity to run the blower. It won't even start because it ignites via an electric starter.
ReplyDeleteMs. Russel: It is a small world. I hope your sister wasn't too inconvenienced by the rolling black outs. There were a record number of accidents in Austin yesterday.
ReplyDeleteDoug: That's exactly what I said! How is it any different from any other time of year? Apparently two major power centers in central Texas had frozen pipes and frozen piles of snow that knocked out fifty generators each, and switching the grids to share other generators made them over load or some nonsense. Basically, this was a preventable disaster. They didn't wrap their pipes well enough.
And my friend's fiancée is a med student in Dallas: she said that they lost power too, but their back up generators DID work. I hope somebody complained about the loss of power. People on life support need that stuff to, you know, live.
George: Three days is a really long time to make people freeze inside of their own homes. Did you start burning the furniture to survive? And I was told that natural gas heaters would work without electricity. Somebody lied to me!
Chanel, the old ones with pilot lights would work, but now they have electronic starters and other things that prevent it from running without electricity. So much for progress.
ReplyDelete