— in buio.
It was just as we were warming the oven when the lights went out.
Darn, no dinner.
R flipped the breakers on and off and on and off again — nothing.
Just flipping nothing.
Flipping nothing.
Che cazzo.
So — no laundry and no dinner and no internet to even use whatsapp to message the landlord — so damn, gotta turn on the network and tell him: uh. We have no power. Again. Nothing.
We are in the dark.
Pitch black.
Nothing helping.
He said “I will send a guy to help you but you gotta go downstairs, next to the elevator there is a room that can help you.”
We found shoes, coat, found two doors marked “Pericolo”. DANGER.
One was locked.
One open.
Of course it was open. Tried to go in. Oops…light switch doesn’t work.
Sure, of course in a foreign country in a foreign electrical system I am going to start mucking about with the controls.
Sure, that’s super smart.
Yep, Imma just gonna start turning things on in a really old building where the door is marked — in really big red letters: PERICOLO.
That’s super super smart.
I took a picture of the dark room.
Yes, the dark room.
Sent it, using my data, to landlord.
I ain’t doing this, I told him.
“No. Non lo sto facendo. Pericoloso.”
(Dangerous)
So now we are just sitting in the dark. On the couch. Waiting for the guy to help.
You know, on a Saturday night when it is a really good time to call a guy to help.
Just sitting in the dark, waiting.
And, after two hours. Suddenly, the lights went on.
The guy arrived. He gave us a key to the locked room — where, in fact, there was a switch with our apartment number on it and it was not so pericoloso.
So now R was game for going out. We put on shoes and coats and walked around the corner and saw this guy — the Edwin One Man Band. He was actually pretty good.
We walked to the end of the block and saw this.
Oh…so that is where the electricity went to.
Our landlord had told us not to worry — that he loses power all the time.
That it was an actual thing to lose power all the time.
Something we didn’t know — because aside from being in the dark — we have been, about so many things, in the dark.
Learning a language is so much more, for example, then just learning the words.
Moving to a new place is so much more, for example, then just finding a place to sleep.
Adjusting to everything new is so much more than, for example — just adjusting.
I have wished that I guy would just come and flip a switch and turn on all the lights…
But a lot more work will be involved for us to come to light in so many things — a lot more work than just a guy flipping a breaker.
But oh, I wish, I wish.
It is more than just flipping a breaker.
Flipping a flipping breaker.
The doors always say Pericolo. The rules are different. You never know where you are really going to and you are in the dark.
Yet here we are, turning on one breaker at a time, replacing one small bulb at a time, hoping against hope that soon everything, everything…
Will be illuminated.
