Brown Out Party

Last night the building and presumably some other locations went semi-dark. We had a brown out. No I had nothing to do with it.

Why does it take a crisis, it's a crisis because beer was getting warm, for Americans to get out and meet our neighbors?

I met more of my neighbors last night, than I had previously in the four months that I've been living in the building.

The brown out had its downsides though. My security alarm kept resetting. Each time it had to beep annoyingly until I hit the reset button. Finally, I called the company that installed it and they walked me through the process of shutting it down. It was like diffusing a bomb.

Here's pretty much what the conversation was like:

Technician: "Hi you called about your security alarm."
me: "Yes it keeps going off because we had a brown out."
Technician: "Okay, here's what you need to do: There should be a box, inside a panel, inside a closet, inside your unit."
me: "ehhh... okay."
Technician: "Unscrew the screws and open the panel. Carefully, remove the battery and remove the red wire."
me: "I'm sweating."
Technician: "Don't worry sir. You can do this."
me: "What about the black wire?"
Technician: "DON"T TOUCH THAT!"
me: "Okay. I've detached the red wire."
Technician: "Good. Now, find a monkey. If you don't have a monkey, a rat will do."
me: "Ehh.. A monkey? What about a chimp?"
Technician: "Naw. That won't work. They're too stringy. Do you have a cat?"
me: "Actually, yes. Two of them."
Technician: "Okay. Tie a string to the tail of one of the cats. Once you've done that, go outside and find a leaf."
me: "What's the leaf for?"
Technician: "To tie to the other end of the string."
me: "Oh. Okay."

Later back with the leaf.
me: "Okay, the leaf is attached to the cat. It's running around trying to catch the leaf."
Technician: "Yeah, isn't that exciting."
me: "Yeah. What about the alarm?"
Technician: "Oh. I forgot. Now in a completely different closet, probably in your neighbor's place, you need to unplug a transformer from the thingy..."
me: "Wait, wait. Did you say 'thingy'?"
Technician: "Yeah, you know a thingy. It looks like a face with two eyes and a mouth."
me: "Do you mean an electrical outlet?"
Technician: "Ooh, Mr. Smartypants knows the technical term for the thingy! If you're so smart why don't you turn off the alarm yourself!?"

me: "Riiight. Okay, I've found the transformer. It's attached via a screw to the outlet. I guess I need to unscrew that first?"
Technician: "I don't know. I'll have to check with my supervisor. Can you hold?"
me: "Look. It's 1:00 in the morning. I just want to get back to bed. Is this the last thing I need to do, or what?"

Technician: "Errr.. yeah... yeah... that's it. Sure. Okay. Buh-bye."