When I saw what Telwyn of Gaming Sans Frontières had for a Blaugust writing prompt, I knew exactly what the answer would be:
What piece/s of technology would you have the hardest time living without?
And I can answer that because I just recently had to live it.
Earlier this month, Hurricane Isaias menaced the entire east coast of the United States without ever really doing much damage, and everyone from Florida to North Carolina breathed sighs of relief. But it was an arrow that was pointed right at New England. It came barreling through Connecticut and dropped tornadoes and trees alike through its rampage. Most of Connecticut was without power for at least awhile; my neighborhood was without power for five days.
We lost all our refrigerated food, hundreds of dollars worth. The high humidity started mold growing everywhere. Our gas still worked, so I was able to cook dinners (largely rice and pasta based), and we ate and cleaned up by candlelight.
The one bit of tech I missed most was – a light. It would get too dark to read or anything past 6:30PM or so, because our house doesn’t get a lot of natural light. So I’d read outside until that got too hard, and then I’d continue reading in the living room, in the dark, with my phone in flashlight mode.
Sure, I missed gaming and stuff. I had permission to go into the office so I could charge my stuff and work. And I was thankful my stove and hot water heater worked on gas and not electricity, or things would have been much, much worse.
I missed lights the most. We did have lanterns and flashlights but we didn’t want to drain the batteries for no reason.
When the lights finally did come back on, I couldn’t understand the joy I felt.