Justice

There was a power failure in my suburb this morning, but it didn't particularly bother me. Most of my clocks didn't work, but my alarm is battery powered. My water heater works on gas, with a mechanical ignition, so I had a lovely hot shower even though the bathroom was dark. I have breakfast at work, so it didn't matter that the kettle and the toaster were dead.


Yep, I thought, as I climbed onto my scooter, I'm lucky that I'm not that reliant on electricity to get going in the morning.


Then I pressed the button to make the garage door go up, which, of course, failed to make the garage door go up.


My property is completely surrounded by a high, thick wall. The only way in or out is via the garage or a garden gate. The gate is wide enough the manouvre the scooter through, but just beyond it there's a large step up to the footpath, too tall for the scooter to clear. I had to go back to the garden shed, find some old bits of wood, build a ramp, haul the scooter up it, stop as it collapsed suddenly leaving the scooter teetering on the step, frantically rebuild it with one hand while trying to stop the scooter from tipping over with the other, finish dragging the scooter up onto the footpath, deconstruct the ramp, throw bits of wood around the garden while making inflammatory remarks, then scuttle off to work fifteen minutes late.


From then on, I was somewhat less smug.