I'm not superstitious, so I never dread Fridays the 13th. In fact, usually, Friday the 13th is either a good day for me or nondescript. And while, in the great scheme of things, this Friday, the 13th of July, wasn't terrible, it was highly frustrating.

I was home around 5 p.m., watching a really good, slashy film called "The Velocity of Gary" when I heard "BOOM!" and then the power went out. The "BOOM!" was the sound of the transformer in the neighborhood exploading. This usually occurs when some wee animal such as a squirrel or even a spider gets too close to where it shouldn't be. I live in a wooded neighborhood that borders a national park, so this kind of thing isn't rare. It used to happen with a lot more frequency before they replaced the old transformer with a newer one a few years ago.

Anyway, so I call the electric company's automated emergency-outage reporting system and reported the outage. Knowing how incredibly fucking boring it can get at my house with the power out, I left. I stopped by my grandmother's house when I saw that she had power (she lives in the 'hood down the street from my house). I figured I'd kill time there by watching network television. Not how I'd prefer to spend my Friday evening, but beggers can't be choosers. I spoke for a bit with my grandmother and then she started to go back to her bedroom to retire for the evening. But just then, the power went out at her house.

So, no network TV for me. (Which really isn't a bad thing, but there's still nothing interesting to do.) So, my grandmother continues her journey on her way to her bedroom. But, instead of hearing her bedroom door open, I hear her say, "Oh, no!" Turns out her bedroom door's lock went nuts and she was locked out of her bedroom. So, there's no power. She's locked out of her bedroom, and my aunt and uncle are coming the next day to visit and stay in the guest bedroom, which means my grandmother has to spend the night on the couch because she doesn't want to mess up the guest room.

We spend about an hour in the dark (lit a bit by my flashlight with the dying batteries :P) trying to unlock the door, but the lock is broken. To top it off, she won't call a locksmith, because the only locksmiths are in the neighboring cities, which means it'll take them hours to get to her house because we live in a VERY popular resort town, with traffic backed up for miles on a weekend night.

So, after giving up on getting the door unlocked, I wait til my grandmother gets all comfy and settled in on the couch and go to leave, cuz damnit, even though there's no power in our 'hood, and traffic is backed up to the end of the universe, I'm still going to find someplace with power (and preferably a TV) to go to kill time. So, I go out, get in my car, and just as I pull out of the carport, the power comes back on, just a mere 5 hours after it went out.

I don't recommend this as a way to spend your evening. Fucking Friday the 13th. :P