Three folks from the US office are visiting work this week, which has been a blast. It is fun to introduce people to things I didn’t realize I had been taking for granted. And it is a good excuse to eat out!

We (the whole entire team) went out to happy hour last night at Spice Mall. When I ordered rum and coke, the waiter brought out a can of Pepsi and asked if I wanted coke instead. Um, yes. So he brought some in one of those single-serving wine carafes. And, as with other times I’ve been served cocktails in India, he mixed the drink in front of me (ostensibly so I could confirm the amount of alcohol contained within? When they bring beer bottles out, they have the consumer confirm the adequately-chilled temperature with their hand before opening and serving.)

You know, that other Captain: Morgon

I had to suppress, again, my non-filtered-water-ice phobia. Buddy, who is quick to assure me that most restaurants use ice made from filtered water, is amused by my paranoia. I was too sleepy to dance much (yep, this sports bar has a dance floor and yes, it plays Gangnam Style), but I enjoyed the very skilled (and very physically close) dancing of my male companions. One of the new guys with glasses was quite the dancing sensation. Another told us how his brother had actually studied with a famous choreographer in Bollywood. Men take dancing very seriously here.

When I got back, after 11pm, the power was out. At first, I was like, “glad that didn’t happen in the elevator!” But then it did not come back on. A half hour passed. I was like, “is this a REAL power outage?” But the lights in the hall were on.

I was glad I have windows in three directions looking out to lit buildings. It was enough light to brush my teeth by. And take a shower. I hopped in when I was discovering just how HOT my apartment is when there is no air conditioning, not even air movement.

Incidentally, it has gotten so hot out, that I don’t really need to heat my water any longer before my shower. The water is not cold. On an unrelated note, it also smells like sulfur sometimes.

My apartment was miserably hot. I discovered after waking up at 1am (not the first Too Hot awakening) that the ice cubes in my freezer had melted, but that the cool water felt good sprinkled on my (let’s face it) mostly nude body.

The nude breaker box

I messed with the switches in my breaker box wtih a flashlight, but they all looked in place. I then shut off every single switch in my apartment except for the fridge and the ceiling fan in case I was overloading the system (and because the power blips happening nonstop overnight made my electricity turn on for half a second and I’ve mentioned the little tune the A/C plays every time it turns on, haven’t I.)

I even turned off the mystery switch. No idea what the icon means.

I’m grateful I remembered at the last second that, if the electricity is off then my RO (reverse osmosis water filter) is off too. But I have several backup bottles of water.

I did manage to fall asleep a few times, hot and sweaty, and imagining the majority of the population sleeping in the same heat, but probably with more clothing. Especially all the construction workers who I am pretty sure sleep in the temporary shacks on the street below my flat. When I woke up at 5:30 (sun was up, too hot to fall asleep again), I noticed that a few of the ants that like to find foodstuffs in my kitchen had apparently mistaken me for edible goods. Gross. Sheets went in the wash and I took another shower.

Come on, eat those things!

I was determined to find out whether this had only happened to me (and I should call maintenance) or everyone (and I should just wait it out.) Luckily, my neighbor was up at about 6am and I asked her,

“Did the power go out last night?”
She said yes and went on about how because the weather is so hot, the circuits or whatever overheat, which I’d read about. Then she said it would probably be back that evening.
“Oh well,” I was thinking, bummed about the open milk and possibly juice I’d have to toss.
Then she added, “and it will stop using the power backup.”
“But that backup is out too, right? I have no power.”
She said, “Oh. You should have power. You should always have power.” She walked over to confirm that my light switches did, in fact, do nothing.

This makes me wonder what she thought I was asking. The power goes out almost every day (though the backup had always kicked in before). Did she think I’d never noticed?

Then she suggested it was off because my prepaid maintenance balance had run negative. I thought that was extremely unlikely, as I just checked it last weekend. When I moved in a month ago, I had put 5000 rupees in ($100) and last weekend it was still just under 3000 so I figured I had nothing to worry about for another month. Even my neighbor said it was only about 2000-4000 a month (and, I don’t leave my A/C on when I’m out.)

Still, I went down to the maintenance office (thank God someone was there who could check) and he told me my balance was -900. Mind boggles at how this is possible. I refilled it on the spot.

I am amused by this pull tab.
This has nothing to do with the rest of the post.

I went back up and, sure enough, there was my electricity. My landlord (who failed to inform me that the balance was negative, but informed me within minutes that I had refilled it since he gets a message every time) suggested I should go get the full statement to see what happened.

But I know what happened. I have the electric bill curse.

Everywhere I live, no matter what I do, how frugal I am, I get Giant Utility Bills. I once spent half an hour on the phone (over a decade back now) with a patient man from the electric company as I ranted, asking why the old couple in the mirror-image duplex had a lower bill than I even though I had toughed it out and barely used the heater that month. (My only guess later was the hot water heater.) Then there was the time in Japan where they were so shocked by how expensive my bill was, they actually sent some people over to investigate if something was wrong with my meter. It wasn’t. I was just using a lot of juice for comfort in a house with no insulation.

Seriously?

All in all, I’m actually glad for the uncomfortably hot experience. I wanted to see what it was like to sleep in the ambient temperature. But I would never be able to have that discipline while sleep deprived so it took an unnecessary power outage. (I also want to try a Ramadan-style dawn-to-dusk fast sometime just to see what it is like. But I don’t tend to do well on low blood sugar…)

On a side note, either Baby Guido loves to explore. Or he has some siblings…