By Grace

It was a rainy morning. I could hear the pouring rain go tap, tap, tap, on my driveway. My teacher’s voice was going in one ear and out the other, I was pretty distracted by the rain. Someone in my breakout room glitched out. The lights started to flicker a bit. Suddenly, my house became dark. Teachers were no longer speaking. The lightbulbs weren’t working. I could still see the sun, peering through the windows. No service. There wasn’t even any service on our phones!

“There’s no wifi!!” I ran around my house, alerting everyone. After half an hour of not having much to do, my sister, Catherine, and I played some games that didn’t require wifi. But after a while, we got very bored. “Let’s go downstairs, I guess.” Our mom and brother, William, were already there, sitting at the table in my kitchen. My mom was cooking ramen. As the water was boiling, she plopped the ramen into the pot. We made a few packs of ramen, sprinkled some of the seasoning, then ate it. “Yum!” I thought to myself as I ate the ramen. I looked through the window, a bit worried since my dad left for work already. The outside looked completely drenched. Our front porch was all wet and there were little puddles on the sidewalks.

“At least I don’t have to water the plants anymore,” my mom said, with a playful smile on her face. As I ate my ramen for about thirty minutes, I was wondering to myself. “How am I supposed to get through the day without wifi or power?!?!” I thought about the people that lived when there was no such thing as wifi or power. What did they do everyday? Suddenly, I thought of a field trip I went on about two years ago. We played with the toys that the kids in the olden days played with. All of a sudden, my face lit up.

“We should play a board game!” I told Catherine and William.

“What kind of board game?” Catherine and William asked.

“We should play Chutes and Ladders!” I exclaimed.

“No, we should play chess!” William disagreed.

After arguing back and forth, I got an idea. MONOPOLY. Catherine and William both agreed. My siblings and I didn’t always agree, and I usually didn’t have any time to spend time with my siblings, so I was happy that we were going to spend some time together. My siblings and I got annoyed at each other easily, especially me. I liked getting my siblings in trouble, being the youngest and all. I realized we never got to spend time together, all of us.. I gladly brought the board game to them.

My siblings and I played Monopoly for two to three hours. Of course, my brother won. After an intense and tiring game, Catherine and I decided to read. William doesn’t like to read in his free time, he likes to play piano, and that is exactly what he did. We read until about eight pm. My dad had come home safe and we all hugged him. After we settled down a bit, he and my mom walked around the neighborhood, just as they normally do.

When we went to sleep, we had to use candles as our light. The sweet vanilla aroma permeated the room. “I hope we get power back tomorrow.” I told Catherine. The next day went pretty much the same as the day before. Monopoly, eating, reading, piano, etc. My mom called the Comcast company and we were told that we would get our power back by seven. But at seven, there was still no power, and of course no wifi as well. We went to sleep.

In the morning, I was pleased to hear that the wifi and power came back on! I quickly tested the lights. It worked! “Yay!!!” I exclaimed. I was, of course, happy that the wifi came back on, but I was also grateful for the power outage. I noticed that my mom got very creative during the power outage. She cooked rice without a rice cooker, and she even managed to make us fried chicken! I also got closer to my family and there were many laughs, even during our competitive games of Monopoly. Maybe spending time with family isn’t so bad after all.