The Power and the Envy

This appeared on Sept. 3, 2006


The woman told the waitress at the Magnolia Grill the only reason she and her husband were having breakfast out Saturday morning was bad luck.

"Every time a raindrop falls on our house, the power goes out," she said.

Her exaggeration may only be minimal. As Chester County's population grows and the number of PECO lines intersecting the landscape follows, it seems now that whenever Mother Nature so much as sneezes, thousands of lights go off from East Bradford to East Pikeland.

And as the darkness encircles them, people all across the county get up, look out the window and say the same thing that the woman did:

"The people across the street have power," she intoned into a cell phone on which she was registering her complaint with someone she imagined had the authority to turn hers back on. "The people across the street always have power."

It is like a rule of thumb around here: You're in the dark, and the neighbors are safe and well-lit.

Friday night's Ernesto-blown wind-and-rain storm proved that maxim once again to my neighbors and I in the 300 block of South Church Street. As we sat out on our porches after the lights had gone out, trading candles and firing up Coleman lanterns, we gazed across the street and saw comforting yellow windows of lights burning brightly.

"The people across the street have power," we told one another. "Why do the people across the street always have power?"

I've spoken before about this after-storm jealousy that infects us in West Chester. When it quits raining and the wind has died down, we go out on foot searching for the areas of town that either have power or don't have power.

Finding a block as dark as our own, we feel vindicated. "Thank the Lord I'm not the only one without electricity," we say. "I thought I was being singled out by the PECO-gods."

Finding a block with the lights lit up like a Las Vegas showgirl's wedding, on the other hand, we feel angry and cheated. "What're they, Exelon execs? They better than we are? Somebody paying somebody off?"

I don't know if there is a rational explanation as to why the people across the street always have power. I don't even know if the people across the street always do have power. After all, if my power stays on during a storm I don't go around checking whether my neighbors have had their circuits blown. I just turn up the volume on the hi-fi and sing along with Dylan.

And, truth be told, sometimes getting your power blown can be a good thing. When the power went out in June, my friend Jamie's wife Cheryl engineered a system for keeping the food cold and the water fresh that would have made Rube Goldberg gasp in astonishment. When the lights went back on, she was almost sad; she'd have to resort to simply flipping a switch to get things going rather than dropping a bowling ball in the laundry basket, or however the contraption worked.

As for me, I think my neighbors and I have gotten to known one another a little better because of our shared experience on the front porch during power outages. We get to share a glass of wine, catch up on gossip, re-tell stories from the last storm, and maybe even meet one another's family or friends as they stop by to commiserate.

So you see, lady, maybe the people across the street aren't so lucky. After all, that Magnolia Grill breakfast looked awful good.