The Neighbors

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I creep over to the deck and peer around, looking at the neighbor's deck where I just was.  There, staring out the patio window are three figures.  One obese girl with long hair in her early twenties.  I half bald old man in his sixties with a beer gut as big as a keg.  One very fit man in his late twenties in a wife-beater.  All covered in blood and what I presumed to be dog hair.  They didn't seem to see me so I took them in for a second.  They weren't very animated, and judging by the time it took them to get upstairs, they're pretty slow-moving.  They're eyes were dilated, which was interesting.  If that was permanent, it means their night vision would be great, but they'd be a little limited in sunlight.

I went back in the house to ponder my situation.  Things weren't great, but they could be a lot worse.  And on that note, there was something I was worried about:  Heat.  If the power was going to last for a few more days, I wasn't sure how that affects the gas, which is how my house was heated.  Or at least the gas flow.  I know that the electric start will no longer work.  Or my electric thermostat, etc....

I do have a wood burning fireplace in my house, so that's something, but it wasn't great either.  My house was built in the 80's, and the fireplaces were mostly decorative.  They actually let more cold air in than they do produce heat, but it's a place for an open flame and where things actually can be burned, so that's something.  So the situation is, it's mid January, in a completely electric power based city that's about to lose that electric power in a few days.  Do you stay, or do you go?  The answer for me is pretty simple.  I had closed up my parent's old farm house at the beginning of the Fall.  But it had wood heat.  And there was wood there.  It wouldn't take long to fire it back up, and it was less than a four-hour drive.  I had a plan.