A taste of the apocalypse

I'm on overnight again, which means that I got to sleep in (yay for sleeping in!), so I woke up late in the afternoon. Almost the first thing I noticed upon awakening was that there was no glowing numbers from my alarm clock. No matter, I thought, I'll just look at my phone. It was about time to get up, so I staggered out of bed and noticed right off that the fan I keep on to get circulation in my bedroom was off, so I sleepily put two and two together and realized the power was out. But it was light out, and my living room has large windows, so downstairs was nice and bright, and I made sure to get the milk out of the fridge for my chex very quickly. I sort of expected the power would come back on at some point, but it didn't. Eventually I began to wonder if it was just my apartment or if it was the whole building. So I opened the door to check.

Remember that I live in a converted warehouse. That hallway was as dark as the pit. My own apartment was getting darker and more industrial at every moment. It was deathly quiet other than the unnaturally loud ticking of my battery-operated clock. I began thinking about how I was going to have to walk down a lot of very dark hallway to get out of the building to get to work, how I wasn't going to be able to cook anything to eat prior to leaving, how I was going to have to get dressed in a bedroom that was approaching as dark as the pit as well... I started having flashes of every creepy, industrial, post-apocalypse tv show and movie I've ever seen. If the hallway weren't pitch black, I think I would have half-expected to see looters running up and down the halls, breaking in doors and tossing valuables out the windows. It didn't help that I live near a number of other large warehouses, most of them more run down and creepy looking than my building. I suddenly remembered the day last week when half the streetlights were out as I drove to work in the morning, giving the city a gotham city vibe to rival that of downtown chicago(where they filmed part of the latest batman movie!).

Right about when I was freaking myself out I remembered that I have a camping lantern which is battery operated. Using my phone as a flashlight, I was able to delve into my deep, dark closet, find the lantern, use it's light to get dressed and do something with my hair, and venture forth. The hallway and stairwell were more tolerable with the lantern, but still very dark, creepy and industrial. I kind of felt like I was giving away my position with the lantern, a dangerous thing to do...

I stopped at chipotle to get some food, because you just can't work all night on nothing but a bowl of chex, and this chipotle was very dark and industrial and playing loud music with a pulsing, club beat.

I was very grateful to reach the safety of the brightly-lit hospital. Though I couldn't help but think how incredibly creepy it would be if the power went out there...