At 6:45 p.m., driving home from work the traffic was worse than usual, due in part to some stoplight malfunction.

The wind and rain was gusting a little and didn't seem all that bad, but as soon as I turned off of Military Road and onto my street, the houses looked deserted and hauntingly dark. I knew the power was out again.

The storm that Andy Wappler was frothing about that morning only dumped a little rain, and I was surprised that the lines should be down.

But in this neighborhood, it's fairly common.

Even with underground utilities, the main that feeds our 'hood must be a weak one, because it fails probably four to six times a year.

I know this drill well, however, and with the garage door motor dead, I got into the house through the window like usual. Within ten minutes I had the generator running and a fire in the woodstove.

No longer content with lanterns and cold beans, the generator was a gift to myself after the big ice storm of 1996.

That year, when the heavy rain of late December was followed by a freezing north wind and cold snap, our power was out for eleven days.

The ice hung from the trees and looked unequivocally like a sort of crystalline wonderland, until big limbs began to snap and take out the power lines.

Coupled with temps in the low twenties, my gas furnace decided to malfunction, and Mrs. Anthony and I and the dogs spent Christmas vacation huddled around the kitchen table eating cereal and melted ice cream.

We could have gone to a motel or stayed with her dad, the Mad Russian, but truth be told, in a world dominated by electronic gewgaws and jimcracks, and with our horrible dependence on the telly and the microwave, it's good to be reminded of how overly dependent we are on the utility companies.

For this outage, it would be a while before Mrs. Anthony came home and I was hungry, so I poured myself a small bowl of cereal, pulled a small carton out of the dark cave that used to be my fridge and poured a few dollops into the bowl.

The first spoonful nearly knocked me down. I had grabbed a carton of Chicken Broth instead of milk and now had a mouth full of granola ala poultry juice. Bleecch! (Note to self: put refer on a generator circuit).

It took half of a bottle of orange juice to get that weird combination out of my mouth and a few spoonfuls of ice cream as a consolation.

I thought about saving the rest of the nasty concoction for Mrs. A, but the last time I pulled a cruel trick like that, (rubber band wrapped around the sink sprayer) I got the cold shoulder and the couch for the night.

Fortunately, the wood stove has a flat top just right for cooking, and I put a pot of water on it to make some of my famous Chili Mac.

Even though the generator runs a few lights in the hallway, I lit some candles for atmosphere. I could hear the generator's hum between some lingering wind gusts, so I went out to inspect it for fuel level. It was barely below full so I grabbed a few more chunks from the woodpile and brought them back in to the bin by the door.

Later, after dinner (the dogs enjoyed the chicken granola), the Mrs. reminded me about the year we had the ice storm.

"I think the power company should take some off of our bill when the power goes out so often."

I reminded her that when I tried that idea, the slightly ascerbic gentleman on the phone said, "So...you want us to not charge you for power that you aren't using?" If Mrs. Anthony could have slapped him through the phone, he'd still have a red mark on his face.

Ultimately, because monopolies like PSE hold all the cards, we can either like it or lump it. Unless we're clever enough to have solar panels and a windmill or hardy enough to just live off the grid, all we can do is grumble and throw another blanket on the bed.