Can I Get a Wake-Up Call?

Today we got a letter from the Lewes Board of Public Works, the elected body responsible for lights, water and sewer services here in the first town in the first state.

Connectiv Power Delivery, with the permission of The City of Lewes, has scheduled a power outage of the Lewes tap for April 18, 2005, from Midnight to approximately 5:00 a.m. (rain date April 19th) to relocate Connectiv's electric transmission pole on Savannah Road near Quaker Road.

There's more, of course (Police are ready, Fire Department and 911 Centers notified, etc.) but that sentence is the meat of the thing: Midnight to just before dawn, on a Monday morning, no power.

Okay. I understand that every once in a while we have to do without for a bit to make it possible to maintain the infrastructure we depend on. But midnight to dawn on a Monday morning? Why not Friday night to Saturday morning? Why not Saturday afternoon?

A great many of the folks in this town are retired, but Karen and I have to get up on Monday mornings. In fact, she usually gets up first, at around 5:00 a.m. Then I get up. Then she gets the girls up. Then we eat breakfast and head out for work and school.

It all starts with an alarm clock.

A modern, electric alarm clock.

I guess what we'll do is leave all the lights, and radios, turned on when we go to bed. Or, more likely, we'll get up at about 11:45 Sunday night and turn them on. Then we'll lie awake hoping they get the power back on by 5:00, which is when we need to get started.

Of course Murphy's Law suggests two possible outcomes.

1. The Connectiv crew is quick and, just as we hit deep-REM sleep at about 3:00 a.m., the lights and radios come blasting on, terrifying the cats who spring from the bed using our arms or faces as a handy, soft launching pads into which to sink their claws, and leaving us groping for the lights that blind us; or
2. The Connectiv crew hits unforeseen snags and the power is still out at 8:00 a.m. when we slowly emerge from our deep, refreshing slumbers only to realize that we're hopelessly late, we'll never make to work on time, we'll lose our jobs, and our girls will never, ever get to Harvard.

Or maybe it'll be fine. But, still... Midnight to dawn on a Monday morning?