The Taste of Powerlessness

Power brings with it many things, depending on the circumstances: responsibility, access, self-multipication, a feeling of overwhelming strength and invulnerability. But then something happens. You blow out your knee. You overstep your bounds, bringing upon you and your family the swift vengeance of a Don, or a Ghengis. You lose the ability to keep perishable foodstuffs cold. Sometimes, what we do when we lose our power is more important, and greater evidence of our character, than how much of it we have in the first place.

So when the spring-meets-summer winds clashed and ravaged southeastern Michigan this past week, rendering my host's home without electricity for four days, I had a decision to make. Do I go out for breakfast? Or do I enjoy my morning ritual of combined cereal in an oversized bowl, only this time, [gasp], without the milk? Let me breakdown for you the consequences of that meteorological disaster.

Day 1: The evening before, our power had gone out. In times past the problem out there in ElectricityLand was fixed within one score hours. Knowing this, I awoke to a note saying, among other things, "and try not to open the fridge," and immediately opened the fridge. My Cinnamon Toast Crunch + Raisin Bran Crunch + Life needed their Skim, and I, my daily allotment of pasturization. Anyway, the power would go back on within the day, I told myself, and all foods would remain chilled. I was not without sensitivity: I opened and closed with great haste. The cereal that morning was fine, if laced with a tinge of guilt, sticky and cloying in the back of my throat.

Day 2: Power still out. This time, the threat was not a seeping out of all-important cold air keeping our cottage cheese curdled but once and our processed cheese solid. Instead the milk itself had been compromised--over 40 hours of lingering refridgeration can keep a gallon only so pourable. This morning's warning was more specific, even in its unwritten, assumed state: "Don't eat anything from the fridge." A case could be made for the blackberry jam (it's mostly sugar and pectin anyway) and perhaps the spicy brown mustard (if anything, it'll be more spicy!) but the edibility of the milk was not in question.

And yet. I opened the fridge and grabbed that milk by the handle. I took a smaller bowl, somehow thinking the lesser volume would save me from the miniscule creatures swimming through the lukewarm kiddie cow pool, and splashed an inch into the bottom. After placing the milk back into the impotent Sub-Zero (no need to let it lose its lukeness), I poured the cereal over the milk. Why, I don't know, but this reversal in order of operation lessened, in my mind, the likelihood that my stomach would grow angry and convulsive after absorbing its morning medicine. Just in case, and since I needed more moisture for even distribution, I added tap water over the cereal, making the "mil-ter" that rose halfway up the see-through bowl the color of paint thinner. Of all the cereals, the Life morsels took most poorly to the change, being more prone to mushiness than that of the heartier "Crunch" varietals. Still, the end result was satisfying enough.

Day 3: The energy people have told us not to expect power until at least the following midnight. For fear of lumps dropping over my cereal and ruining the flake-to-raisin ratio, I did not risk using the Skim. Water fell into my bowl like blood running from the throats of the accidentally massacred. I am tired of compromising my breakfast.

Day 4: Last evening, on the way home from my sister's house, where my niece and nephew basked in the glory of their ice-cold sippy cups and thier Tivo'ed Nickelodeon (An impromptu rationale: what is breastmilk, if not milk left unrefridgerated for days?), I stopped on a whim and bought a pint of Cookies 'n Cream ice cream. My birthday cake leftovers could wait no longer; they needed the appropriate side dish. So what if it would melt in a few hours' time? I was sick of eating in the soft glow of oil lamps. I needed something to make me forget.

The next morning, that pint of soupy ice cream sat on the granite counter-top, morning light gleaming through drops of condensation coating the paper container. The fridge was now left open and emptied. Alternatives were legion: oatmeal, skillet toast, a choice of diners within five miles on all sides. But I needed my cereal. Another morning of water-moistened flakes might break me. Then I saw the ice cream. Or, rather, what used to be ice cream, but what was now a thick, slightly chunky-but-still-definable-as-liquid, settled into the bottom of that pint. I shook out my cinnamony, raisiny, life-y concoction. And then I spooned that melted ice cream over my dry cereal in a manner appropriating baptism. I spilled it carefully and evenly. The dark cookie chunks that settled on top? A necessary, if chocolatey, evil. I rinsed over them with a few seconds of recalibrating tap water, the better to stretch out the slightly foamy dairy product as the moistening agent it pretended to be.

After a few swirls and mixings, I was ready to dig in. I rose a spoon of cereal into my mouth. Before it even hit the tongue I could smell the sweet cream and vanilla bouquet. When finally my mouth took the offering, after four days of meager approximations, of false promises and tainted attempts, it remembered what it had been missing since last Saturday, nay, since the last twenty-seven years, as I had never switched the normal "milk" with the more ambitious, but now oh-so-obvious substitute of "milk+sugar+cream+flavorings." Finally, when all seemed hopeless, a long-forgotten hero rose from the depths of obscurity and into the cereal-filled bowl of my morning meal, causing stomach-lined euphoria in one very satiated breakfast'er.

In fact, the bowl as a whole was quite rich. I don't recommend it every day. But, if you find yourself without power and, on that fourth day, you need your daily dose, don't hesitate in re-using the previous evening's ice cream to pour over your cereal. Life (and power line vulnerability) is uncertain--Eat dessert first.