Supper in the New House

Everyone reacted differently when the lights went out.

Josie Blanchflower didn’t even notice until she opened the front door (her front door, now; she and her boyfriend had signed the papers ten hours earlier). She shifted the cardboard box she was carrying onto her right arm and tried the light switch with her left hand. When it failed to illuminate the room, she was too tired to do anything but groan.

Keiran Cartwright was on the second floor measuring the width of the hall, and he called down the stairs, “Honey? Are the lights out down there?” He tried to think of where the flashlights were, but he had no luck, for the house had been emptied by its previous owners, and if he or his girlfriend had brought any flashlights, they would be tucked in some box, which would probably be under another box.

Clive had just been putting up his posters on his walls when the room went dark, and he wound up thumbtacking his finger. He gave a shriek and then called for his parents.

Lauren, apparently unfazed, announced, “See, I told you guys this place was a dump, but did anyone listen? Nope, same as always…” She sighed, and then left the counter to find her parents, or, failing that, her older brother, so she might have an audience for her complaints.

Sheena ceased squeaking her toy, though she did not drop it, which muffled her inquisitive bark.

“The power’s out!” Josie shouted from the door, as she closed it. “Don’t move; there’s stuff everywhere, and I don’t want anyone to trip. I’m sure I saw one of the garage boxes around here, I’ll get a flashlight…”

Her children, equipped with the flashlights on their cellphones, did not heed her warning, and instead came into what would be the living room once the furniture had been unpacked. “There’s no electricity here,” Lauren said, in the manner of a teenager who plans on making everyone else as miserable as she is.

“Yes, there is,” replied her father to the rest of the family. “They said there might be a storm a few miles up the road; I’ll bet it just knocked the power out for a little while.”

“Of course it would have to be now,” Josie sighed, setting her box down on the floor in a place she guessed to be out of the way. “It just got dark, and we haven’t had supper yet.” In response to the mention of her favorite meal, Sheena’s tail wagged, and something thumped to the floor.

“How much more do we have to unpack?” Keiran asked.

“I just brought in the last box, but there’s still all the furniture to do. I think that might have to wait until tomorrow, though. I don’t like the idea of trying to move furniture in the dark, especially with little Sheena underfoot. We might as well stop for the night.”

“What’s for supper?” Clive asked.

Josie started to ask what everyone felt like, but stopped short, and thought aloud, “Well, our choices are pretty limited until the power comes back…”

“The oven’s out, but the stove should still work,” Keiran pointed out, as he carefully made his way to the newly-installed oven that had been mentioned in the old farmhouse’s listing.

“Nope,” Josie said. “It’s electric, not gas.”

Lauren snorted. “So we can’t even cook here. Great.”

“Could we order a pizza? Or two?” asked Clive, already reaching for his phone.

Josie brightened. “What do we think of that?”

“Pizza? Uh, yeah!” Keiran answered.

Lauren, her mood suddenly improved, agreed; with that, it was decided. Clive volunteered to make the call, but the weak light from his phone illuminated his expression’s change from excitement to dismay. “I think the internet’s out,” he said. “And I don’t know any pizza place’s numbers. Actually, I don’t know any place’s numbers.”

For a moment, all stood in silence. A whine from Sheena brought them out of their sulk. “We haven't forgotten, girl,” Josie said, “At least we know what we’re doing for your supper. Just let me get your food…” The family had not brought much food from their old abode; their refrigerator had been kept lean for the past two days in anticipation of moving day, and most of what had been packed into the cooler required some form of heat to be rendered safe for human consumption. Thus, all the remaining goods fit in the tote with Sheena’s pre-portioned packages of food. As she poured one of the packages into the dog’s bowl (which had been packed with everyone’s food), Josie looked through her options.

“Okay, we’ve got cereal…crackers…peanut butter, some grape jelly…and some chips. And a jug of orange juice,” she said, putting all of these on the counter as she unpacked them.

“Peanut butter and jelly on crackers might be good. They’d be like tiny sandwiches,” Keiran mused, in an encouraging voice that both his teenage children felt they were ten years too old to be encouraged by.

“Yeah, and dry cereal is awesome!” Lauren practically squealed, in a voice that dared anyone to reprimand her for sarcasm. “One thing we’re forgetting – the table and all the chairs are still on the van. Where are we going to sit?”

“I don’t mind sitting on the floor,” Clive said, doing so next to Sheena, who had already begun her supper. He put his phone on the floor, so the flashlight shone up in the air.

“I mean, it’s not like we’re going to get crumbs on the carpet, right?” Keiran chuckled, sitting down across from his son on the hardwood floor and adding his phone so that the pale white light doubled in strength. The array of boxes stacked around the room cast shadows like high-rises on the walls.

“You need something to eat off of, though,” Josie said, cautiously moving about the boxes nearest to her. “Where did I put the kitchenware? All I can find are Grandma’s dishes…”

“The ones with the blue and red flowers?” Lauren asked. “I always loved those.”

“Well, I know we usually save them for special occasions, but this is pretty special – our first supper in our new house!”

“Maybe I could find the silver…” Lauren said, turning away with her phone alight to hunt among the boxes. A minute later, she joined her father and brother on the floor, and started taking silverware from a box marked ‘FRAGILE - GRANDMA BLANCHFLOWER’S STERLING’ on all sides. While she handed out knives, forks, and spoons, her mother set plates and bowls on the floor. Even in the pale light, the silver and china gleamed.

Josie said, “I can’t find the glasses, either; but this box has the punch bowl and all its cups, so we can use them.” Keiran, Clive, and Lauren all got up and collected one of the blue carnival glass punch cups, and then helped Josie carry supper to the spot on the floor. Sheena took a great deal of interest in the proceedings, as she was unaccustomed to her humans taking their meals on the floor. In the sudden good spirits, a place was set for her as well, and she sat down placidly in front of her plate.

“Now, how do we want to serve this?” Keiran asked.

“Let’s put all the crackers on the serving platter,” suggested Josie.

“And I’ll put some peanut butter in one bowl, and jelly in the other,” Lauren said, reaching for another knife. “That’s how people set things out in the olden days, when they were having a nice supper.”

Clive chuckled. “Don’t let Grandma hear you calling her one of the ‘olden days’ people, or she’ll take her dishes right back.”

Josie filled the big punch bowl with orange juice; the spoon clanked gently against the glass. “We might as well drink it all. There’s no point in hooking the refrigerator up until the power’s back, and I don’t want it going bad.” Everyone took a large spoon of juice in their little punch cups, although they held these; Sheena was still sitting, but she had gotten so excited that her tail had begun to wag, and no one liked the idea of having to mop up orange juice. Lauren poured the cereal into one of the large salad bowls, and everyone took what they wanted into their ice-cream dishes. Handfuls of crackers were grabbed from the platter, and peanut butter and jelly were applied to them before they were sandwiched together. There wasn’t a spare set of bowls for the chips, so these were poured straight onto plates.

“It’s not often we get to have chips for supper,” said Clive.

“Don’t get used to it,” Josie replied. “Or to eating on the floor in the dark. Tomorrow, we’re getting the table set up, and all the appliances running.”

“It does make for an interesting supper, though,” Keiran said. “Sitting at a table, with lights and everything, will seem boring now.”

Lauren shrugged. “Well, I wish we had internet – I wish we had electricity, really – but I guess this isn’t that bad.”

“High praise, coming from you,” said Clive. Everyone grinned at this, even Lauren.

Lauren and her mother each added their phones’ flashlights to the pile and succeeded in making the room a bit brighter. For a time, the dark air was filled with the scrape of silver on china, the rattle of cereal in bowls, and the crunch of chips, interspersed with the occasional trickle of orange juice into a glass cup. There was little in the way of conversation, as all were too tired after a day of wrapping objects in paper, putting them in boxes, and stacking the boxes, then undoing all their work a few hours later; but everyone was in a good enough mood, the sort of puzzled good mood that can only be found amongst those who are eating peanut butter and jelly cracker sandwiches on fine china on the floor in the dark. Often, a bit of cereal was tossed onto Sheena’s plate, and she was delighted with that.

Eventually, Josie said, “It’s past ten o-clock, and even if the power does come back on soon, I can’t think of anything I want to do with it. It’s been a big day, and I’m going to wash the dishes and go to bed.”

For the first time anyone could remember, both her boyfriend and her children volunteered to help with the dishes. They all made their way to the sink, and Lauren pulled a handle forward.

Nothing happened.

“I guess when the electricity goes out, the water goes out, too,” Keiran said, trying to make this sound like an interesting discovery. “Maybe we should look into getting a generator?”

“We’ll do it in the morning,” Josie responded. “We’ll do the dishes in the morning, too.”

And with that, they all went to bed.

THE END