I must warn you that my blackout story is not that cool.

I got home at around 4:00, so I just made it home in time. I can play that up for dramatic effect. "Holy shit. I seriously just got home. Oh my god. Ten minutes earlier and I would have totally been in the train. Ohmigod." When I got home I noticed that the construction workers next to my apartment were listening to Jewel. I thought this was weird. I never really pictured any construction workers being like, "Hey guys, I got the new Jewel!" Then some other guy going, "Sweet! Put it in, you fuckin' dick!" (Insert Village People joke here.)

My roommate got home just after me and we were talking about something, then I brought up the fact that our construction workers were gay and listening to non-construction like music. Where's the Zeppelin? At this point, Jewel turned into Phil Collins. I forget which song, but it was a slow one. It was like my mom made the construction workers a mix tape. All of the sudden, the song just cut out. I assumed the foreman showed up and was like, "Hey homos! What the fuck are you listening to? Here is some Danzig." Then we noticed our power was out. So like everyone else who was in a building at the time, we thought it was just our building.

That part of almost everyone's story, "I just thought it was my building" is quickly becoming the 9/11 equivalent of "At first, I just thought it was some horrible accident."

So I went outside to talk to the construction workers, because I assumed through their teary Phil Collins eyes, they accidentally cut a wire or something. I go outside to talk shop with the fellas. I am terrible at handyman stuff so I'm always kind of intimidated by builders or mechanics. I know nothing. "So, hey. What's that, a hammer?"

I soon realize that there are plenty people out on the street looking towards Manhattan and there is a giant plume of black smoke coming from the city, so the natural assumption is, "Great, we just got bombed by Al Qaida." I then ran down the street naked yelling, "It's all over! It's all over!" Turns out it was the ConEd plant, which apparently pumps out black smoke if the turbines stop. I put my clothes back on and walked down the street to stand around someone's car who had the radio on where me and my neighborhood hipsters listened to 1010 WINS. (<---That is a terrible sentence. My English teachers are rolling over in their graves.) There I realized what was going on. Canada? Holy shit. That's crazy, I thought.

I then got a piece of pizza before it would all go bad, and then I was like, "Fuck this. I'm going to get drunk." I figured, what better way to enjoy a blackout than actually trying to black out? I go to a local watering hole and there were only about 6 other people there, and the bar still had some cool air left over from their AC. That was gone pretty soon. In about an hour, the bar was packed. Dark, hot and packed. And totally fun. Blackout fun.

There was a good mix of people. Lots of guys looking for some blackout sex. Unfortunately for them, not many ladies were looking for the same thing.

It was fun to walk around when it got dark, because you couldn't see shit. People were just bumping in to each other. Perhaps that was just me because I was wasted.

After the bar I went to this grocery store and people were buying water and batteries and canned goods. You know, survival goods. I got a six pack and a bag of cheese doodles. I didn't have any cash on me, so the guy actually let me take it. I heart NY.

I woke up the next day at around noon and my power came back on at 3:30. I go to watch TV, and I notice as I am flipping around, I have a few extra channels than normal. So I reprogram my channels to see what's going on. I don't know what the fuck happened, but all of the sudden I have cable.

Bottom line -- I was drunk and/or sleeping for most of the blackout, and when the power came back on, God gave me cable.

Best blackout ever!

For a much more exciting blackout story about me and Edward Burns, please read what Lisa thought of my fate, then Tricia.