Okay, you got me.

The power has been finicky lately. I think it's testing me. It keeps flicking out, just to see how prepared I am. Or something.

It started on Tuesday while Rachel and I were having a dance party. We were listening to the Beach Boys and dancing around the living room like crazy party animals. And then we heard the power turn off.

Heard, because it was the middle of the day and we didn't have any lights on, anyway, but we live our lives surrounded by the hum of electricity and when that power disappears you can really sense it.

Luckily, we were listening to music on the laptop and laptops switch to battery power when their power cords fail, so the music kept on playing and we danced right through the power outage without interruption.

Take that, electricity!

Later in the day, so late that we actually had lights on because it was getting a little dusky outside, I was making dinner when the power went out again. With a clack and hum everything powered down.

Luckily, we have a gas stove, so even though I was making soup and grilled cheese sandwiches dinner was still delivered as scheduled because the stove still worked. And we still had enough natural light in our apartment that we didn't have to worry about flashlights or anything.

You'll have to try a little harder, electricity!

Last night Andrew and I stayed up too late working on a project together. We finally decided to call it a night and go to bed at around 1:00 AM (see? too late), so we shut off our laptops and set about getting ready for bed: locking the doors and putting away a few last things in the kitchen, strategically turning off lights as we went.

The electricity decided it would help with that last part. Its strategy was to turn off all the lights at once instead of leaving on a few to guide us around the house. And I had just turned on our bedside lamp, too.

Okay, you win. I was completely unprepared for this one.

I found myself stumbling across our bedroom floor in pitch blackness; Andrew was stuck in the kitchen, which is a black hole at its best, now transformed into a pit of despair of sorts. I knew that if anyone had any chance of locating a flashlight, it was going to be me because I knew where the flashlights were, first of all, and second of all, I wasn't stuck in the kitchen.

I felt my way over to the bookcase and searched each crevice looking for the flashlight I knew was there. I found it at last, flicked it on, announced to Andrew that I was coming to rescue him and started improvising a little theme song for my rescue mission.

Two seconds into that little theme song, the flashlight died. Completely.

"Uh, just a sec!" I called out to Andrew, "The flashlight just died. But I know where another one is!"

I made my way to the television and grabbed the wind-up flashlight. Then I had to wind it...and wind it...and wind it, but eventually it did turn on and I rescued Andrew and we finished getting ready for bed by the light of the silvery flashlight.