The Hose

Evil
PARTY LIKE IT'S 1999 (B.C.)

I've heard it suggested that once you go black, you never go back. Personally speaking, I'll take electricity any day. The city went black for all of 16 hours, which in the grand scheme of things doesn't seem like such a big deal but let me tell you, I went batty by minute five.

Luckily, it turns out that my downstairs neighbors are incredibly proactive people. They dropped by to ask me if I had any perishables in the fridge. I said no, but I did offer them some sausage and salty nuts. They declined, but invited me down to the front of the apartment for the Blackout BBQ.

The girls went to buy charcoal while all the dudes in the building made a fast break for the nearest Indian convenience store with a liquor case. It's obvious everyone had the same thing on their minds: Someone is going to get "blackout lucky."

People brought down their perishables and folding chairs and sat and drank beer while a girl whose pants kept threatening to fall down tended to the fire. The grill was set up on the garbage can cubby and the folding chairs mingled among the day's uncollected garbage. The rats, whose turf we had overtaken for the night, retreated for fear of getting BBQ'd. This was a classy operation.

We had to drink fast because nothing was going to keep the beer cool for long. The girls waved to passers-by and shouted, Happy Blackout! At some point, I think propositioned the blonde, but I think I did so in a very sloppy way. It was classy. Very classy.