Friday, December 15, 2006

What a Night...


It's not every night a person has to sleep in the guest bed... With earplugs!

Let me start at the beginning.

I picked Sarah up from school, patiently waiting in the car while she tried to track down a teacher for some homework help. After giving up, she came out and we headed down the hill. She had quite a bit of homework to do, and wanted to know if she could just do it at my house because I have cable Internet. We stopped by her house so she could pick up a couple things then headed over to my place.

Our area was about to get smacked hard by a fairly major windstorm, and by the time we got to my house it was picking up pretty good. She was upstairs doing her homework while I was downstairs reading a magazine. Occasionally the lights would flicker, reminding her to save her work as she went so she didn't lose it. At one point, there started a banging noise on my North wall. I went outside and found that the wind had pried part of my aluminum siding loose and was slapping it pretty good. I knew it would only get worse, and went to the garage to see if I could find my duct tape to anchor it with for the time being. After not finding it, I called my landlord and gave him the lowdown, and he assured me he'd be there within the hour. I wasn't so much concerned about the noise at that point--More concerned that the siding would come off and be ruined. I was just trying to save him some grief and expense. I also saw a few shingles off someones house fly through the backyard. At that point I carried my bbq grill to the garage for safekeeping.

After a couple hours (still no sign of Alan the landlord) Teresa called and asked me if I was going to bring Sarah home soon, adding that she had put dinner in the oven, hoping to beat the inevitable power outage that always happens where they live. A little bit later Sarah and I headed to her house. About halfway there it was apparent that Teresa didn't make it with her dinner... The whole area near their house was black.

I had Teresa get her half-cooked dinner and I took the both of them back to my house where she was able to finish her baked chicken/rice/veggies meal. I even let her finish watching the Seahawks game on TV (am I a nice guy or what?) that she was into when her power died. It was a good dinner.

Windstorms usually come and go in waves, and this one was no exception. Up until now, the wind had died down considerably, but now it was rearing its ugly head again. Now the siding had come loose even further. I made a halfhearted attempt to fix it short of actually nailing or drilling, and gave up. Teresa kept calling her house every half hour or so, listening for the sign of the answering machine to tell her that her power was back on. At about 9pm, Sarah went up and took a shower and washed her hair just in case she wouldn't be able to at home. Their power finally came on at about 9:30pm so I took them home.

When I came back home, I was tired and pissed. The siding was banging like hell outside and there was nothing I could do about it. There were about 3 or 4 runs of it loose now, and they were making a helluva noise. The problem was that they were directly outside of my bedroom. After deciding there was no way I was going to sleep in there, I took my alarm clock (which has a 9v battery backup) and I went to the guest bedroom, which is farther away from that outer wall. It was better, but not much. That noise was probably heard even by the other tenants. After lying there in bed for about 15 minutes or a half hour, I went to the garage and got some foam earplugs out of my toolbox and put them in.

Ahh... Peace finally. At first I was worried I wouldn't hear my alarm clock, but I figured that I usually wake up just before it goes off anyway. Fortunately, this time I was right. After I woke up this morning, I pulled out the plugs and lay there for a while--Assessing the noise. I could still hear plenty of wind, but not really any banging. I went and looked out the door and saw that the trouble had finally hit the ground. At least it didn't end up wrapped around some pole down the street or anything.

I sure hope it gets fixed today. I want to be able to have a normal evening tonight.

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