Friday, May 13, 2022

Blackout On Friday the 13th

It was cloudy when I woke up this morning, but the sidewalks and streets were still a bit wet. It wasn't raining when I finished breakfast, so I rode to work. Of course, it started showering at a good clip half-way there, but I still only arrived damp.

Work was off-and-on steady for most of the morning. It picked up a little bit around noon, then died again. In addition to the nasty weather, it's the middle of the month, and there's nothing going on again until Memorial Day Weekend. 

I was on my last break and was just pulling out my pen to write down my schedule when suddenly, I couldn't see the pen, the schedule, or anything else. The entire store was plunged into darkness! For a few moments, everything was black and silent. Even our new TV system constantly running documentaries on food history in the employee's room blinked out. 

The lights flashed on after a minute or two, and then the TV about five minutes after that. It took everything up front longer to come back to life. Apparently, anyone who was there couldn't buy their orders because the computers went down, and many of the few customers we had left their orders behind because they wouldn't or couldn't wait. (I later found out that we weren't the only ones who lost power. I don't know what happened, but it went out in the entire area. It never rained again after this morning, and we never had any thunderstorms.)

I did take some customers...but by the time of my last hour, not only was it quiet, but we had plenty of help. We had full carts of returns before the lights went out, so I volunteered to put a dent in those. Got out with no trouble whatsoever. 

Oh, and I did get my schedule once the lights came back on. Not happy at all. Fewer hours, and my next day off isn't until Friday, though I do get Friday and Saturday off. I'm thinking of changing my availability to give me two regular days off. Apparently, some people have done it. I can't keep working 8 and 9 and 10 days in a row without a rest. 

Changed and put on Match Game '74 when I got home. These may have been some of the wildest episodes of the year! In the first, a besotted Kaye Stevens chased a handsome contestant when he lost and was being spun off and for some reason gives a very strange answer to "__ Fry." There's also the question about what anyone who kisses Brett today gets...and Brett isn't overly happy with the contestant's answer! Charles gives his own weird answer in the next show when he claims a fake medium will look into a cherry instead of a glass ball.

Had dinner while Match Game PM was on. This was the one with the very funny former Marine from the Bronx and the pretty lady with the long, elaborate braids. Gene was on the receiving end of a couple of jokes in the first question about what the waiter brought to someone's table when they ordered a ham sandwich. I'm surprised Brett's answer to a later question about what a baseball team was holding wasn't censored! 

Finished the night after a shower with spooky, schlocky fun on YouTube in honor of Friday the 13th. Mystery Science Theater 3000 frequently dipped into the cheesy horror genre...and they didn't come much cheesier than Bloodlust, a low-budget imitation of The Most Dangerous Game from 1961. Four teenagers (a young Robert Reed among them) find themselves stranded on a jungle island. The boys are hunted by a mad man who brings over convicts, shoots them, and stuffs them. For all the cheapness and bad dialogue, this does have a genuinely creepy atmosphere. It gets scarier in the second half, when the kids figure out what this hunting nut is up to. 

Spooks Run Wild is equally cheesy and cheap, even more atmospheric, and a lot more fun. The East Side Kids end up at a haunted house when one of them gets hurt. Another creepy gentleman (Bela Lugosi) takes them in and seems to have control over the injured one. The kids think he's "The Monster," the serial killer who has terrorized the area...but for once, Lugosi is no killer, and the real "Monster" is the last person anyone would suspect. 

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