The Night The Lights Went Out In Saskatchewan

It was another Saturday night in Saskatchewan. For most of us this is leisure time at home or with friends, maybe out on the town. For those of us at home with family, this may have been more evident than to those out on the town. When the lights went out something funny happened, in our house anyway. Off went the T.V., the laptop and the other two computers in the house and out went the lights. Here we were in a house all together in complete darkness and ear piercing silence. We began to shuffle about looking for a flashlight and then candles. After half an hour our house looked like it was staged for The Phantom of the Opera. We all migrated into the kitchen where the majority of the light was.

There was an awkwardness, for it was at this moment we realized how distant we can be from each other under the same roof. What were we going to do? No electricity means no technology to entertain us... this could only mean one thing... we were going to have to interact with one another. I suggested we read a story together, so with flashlight in hand we all sat in the dark in the living room while I read. When the story was over the kids found a game of monopoly and set it up on the kitchen table. I went over to our big picture window and looked out across the street. I could see other homes with the warm glow of candle light flickering off the walls through the windows. I noticed at one of the homes there was another family all sitting at their kitchen table playing a card game.

I couldn't help but think that the night the lights went out in Saskatchewan it may have been exactly what we all needed. It was great eye opener as to how dependent we become on technology and how unintentionally we rob ourselves of enjoying time spent with the ones we love and care about. We may make power outages a regular event at our house from now on.