No, thank you

 So I woke up around 1 am to use the bathroom, as one does*

(*if one is a postmenopausal woman who drinks water overnight to avoid drying out)

Leaving the bathroom the power flickered (I run an air filter over night and it beeps when it loses power) and flickered a couple more times, and then went off altogether.

I first worried - old house, could the wiring be going dodgy even though it was updated before I bought the place. So I went to the front door an peeked out to see if the streetlight was on. It wasn't, and the across-the-street neighbor's wired-in generator was running, so I knew it was an O G and E issue, and not just my house.

So I opened up the app, reported the outage. Went back to bed but didn't fall asleep right away. Checked it again later - they have a map showing outages and they post restoration times. It said 3 am. So, okay. I went back to bed.

Checked it later, around 3:30, when I woke up and realized from the silence that the power was still out.
So then I started to worry. My garage has a strange conformation - an earlier owner put up a wall with cabinets between the back door in and the main garage, meaning there's now no way to just walk into the garage and pull the release for the door opener - so you can manually raise and lower the door (I don't know if you can do it without releasing it. I wasn't strong enough once before, and I suppose forcing it could wreck the mechanism).

But I started to wonder - if the power's not back, what do I do? I can't possibly ask someone to drive me to the station; it's 2 1/2 hours one way, so a five hour round trip, and I'd have to get someone to drive me BACK in January. Uber is not a thing here and I don't like to think how much an Uber for that distance would cost. 

I realized I'd HAVE to get my car out somehow. There's a small gap between the top of the cabinets and the roof, at its peak I MIGHT be able to squeeze through. But I didn't want to try climbing up there by myself; I told myself if the power didn't come back on by 11 or so, I'd try calling Dana, and if she were free, I'd ask if she could bring a small ladder (she has a pickup) and "spot" me while I climbed it. The problem would be getting down on the other side - the garage is small and tight and there's no easy space to just drop down to the floor, and I think at the weight I am currently at, landing on the car's  hood would dent it badly, at the very least. Then I wondered if I could use something to hook the release cord and put enough downward force on it from that distance to pull it. Then I wondered if anyone I knew knew someone who was very small (but tall enough to grab the cord) and agile and we could boost them up and have them pull the cord. Or maybe I could just force the door from the outside and if I damage the mechanism, I get it fixed when I come back?

So I didn't really sleep. I also kept checking and eventually they changed "restoration time" to basically "lol we don't know" so that didn't help. 

It was also getting cold in the house; I have gas heat but it requires an electric starter. I got up and grabbed another blanket and tried to sleep 

Finally, a bit after 6 am, there was a text: restoration time updated, will be 8:30 am

Well, okay, if that's true, I can work with that.

I also realized I had to pee again, so I got up. As I was walking back to bed the air filter beeped again, and the heat kicked on

THANK YOU JESUS POWER CAME BACK TWO HOURS EARLY

So I got up and the FIRST thing I did was grab the garage door opener and go into my sewing room (closest to it) and hit the button so the door opened. On the grounds of "If we lose power again at least I'll be able to get out, and will at least be able to charge my phone off the car charger" (I had been using its flashlight function and was worried about running out of charge)

But I then got up, and put my phone on the charger. I had to  sit under a blanket for a while until it warmed up. I do still need to eat (and then put medications in my carry on) and dress (and then put my makeup and such in the carry on) but I'm essentially ready to go now. I do still want to vacuum a bit, which I can do BECAUSE THE POWER IS BACK ON NOW