I'm Rolling and I Can't Get Up!

Welcome to your rolling blackout. Your call is important to us...

By Ian Shoales

Words and phrases often leap into our cultural vocabulary, becoming permanently embedded in our brains, and we are powerless to stop them.

Some come from commercials and movies, such as, "Where's the beef?", "I've fallen and I can't get up!", or "Go ahead, make my day."

Game shows gave us "Is that your final answer?" and "You are the weakest link. Goodbye."

Many of these turns of phrase become irritating even before our friends work them into casual conversation. And others are quickly forgotten.

"Papal Nunzio?" Who remembers that one? And when President Clinton was under the gun, pundits would "parse" his sentences for prevarications. I hadn't heard that word since fifth grade grammar.

Before last November who knew "chad" was even a word, much less that it posed a threat to the Republic? Sure, we all know that when you punch a hole in paper, the little piece sometimes clings to or dangles from the larger piece. But it's just one of those things - like the rubber ring attached to the bottom of a blender, the indentation in your upper lip, or those little plastic deals on the ends of your shoelaces - that you're dimly aware has a name, but you're also dimly aware that you're just as well off not knowing it.

BLACKOUT BLUES

And now of course, we have been given "rolling blackout." It has an epic feel to it. It sounds like a stampede, or a rock 'n roll extravaganza, or an unusual physical symptom of certain drunken states.

But it doesn't make any sense. How can a blackout roll? Tumbleweeds, caissons, marbles, dice, and certain earthquakes can all roll - but a blackout just sits there. That's been my experience anyway. I twiddle my thumbs in an electricity-free environment, trying to remember if I'd saved that document I was working on before the power went out, and wait.

Sometimes I roll during a blackout. I roll my office chair back and forth rapidly across the floor. I'd like to say I shout "Wheee!" as I do this, but I'm usually too anxious, you know, with all the worrying about whether I'd saved that document or not.

Certainly after my power comes back on, a blackout occurs somewhere else. But I don't think it "rolls" there. A blackout is a condition of absence: The power is not on. How can something that's not there (that is, in fact, off) roll anywhere?

UNTAPPED RESOURCES

Of course, these are just the kinds of thoughts that roll through my mind when I roll back and forth waiting for the power to return. As I roll, I remember that so many businesses crashed last year, thrift stores will no longer accept office furniture. There must be heaps of ergonomic, adjustable chairs, conference tables, and dry-erase boards out there, just gathering dust....

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I heard that repo men are among the few making a killing in the new new economy. Lexuses and Saturns are being snatched for nonpayment by the dozens. And I read in the San Francisco Chronicle that disposing of "e-waste" (hey, a new one!) is rapidly becoming a chronic problem - mountains of PCs, monitors, printers, cell phones, PDAs, VCRs, boom boxes, and TVs. And most of it "hasn't gone anywhere yet, except into storage" ("Drowning in E-Waste," May 27, 2001).

Well, gee, why can't we burn this stuff for energy? Stop the blackouts from "rolling?" How about a big bonfire of luxury sedans, office furniture, and old computers? It won't keep us warm for long, but I suspect it would give a lot of us a deep, momentary satisfaction.

Ian Shoales is working on a PowerPoint presentation about how to solve the energy cri - oops, the power went off. He rolls in San Francisco.