Moe? Is that you?

Today the power went out in my health club. No wind. No weather. Just cold.

I was relaxing in front of the TV, after spending the afternoon using up as much of the club's hot water as I could without drawing attention to myself, when suddenly, everything went totally black. Hmmm. I hope I don't have to find my way out because I can't see anything.

I was always under the impression that public areas had to have emergency lighting in the form of two headlight sized beacons that came on automatically to guide you to safety.

Tell that to the people still in the shower who were slipping and sliding around bare assed, trying to find a way to get out of the dark. Apparently locker rooms are pubic areas, not public areas.

All of a sudden four energetic, perky young female trainers came bouncing into the locker room with flashllghts beaming, asking if anyone needed help. We sent them to rescue the people in the showers.

I played the old age card and got one of these trained professionals to carry my jackets and my bag upstairs for me. For some reason the only emergency lights are located on the ceiling of the club which is three floors above the lobby. I suppose the architects figured that the light from up there would trickle down below.

Apparently the club went dark on its own, because it turns out we were the only outage in the area. When the giggly girls arrived with their flashlights and clipboards to light our way out of the locker room, those of us at their mercy all agreed they didn't seem to have much training for emergencies. They also didn't know if anyone had called Commonwelath Edison or the police. So a couple of us took care of that while our crack rescue team used their walkie talkies to try reaching their boss to find out.

Hello, Matt. Hello, Matt. This is Cathy, over.

[Simultaneously] Hello, Matt. Hello, Matt. This is Susan, over.

Hello, Matt. Hello, Matt. This is Ashley. Over.

By the time they got through to Matt, we had already found out from the cops that there were no other outages and Commonwealth Edison said they would call back and talk to the manager themselves.

Okay, I'm done with this entry. I only wrote it to keep my mind off the insane ball game the Bears are trying to lose to the Packers. Now they're in overtime after blocking a field goal that would have won the game for the Pack, and the coin just bounced off Brian Urlacher's head. This is worse than the cold.