We had strategically used the last morning of our car rental to stock up on groceries at the big Mercadona supermarket on the outskirts of town.

The bad news was that the outage was projected to last six to ten hours. But this was Spanish time, which meant eight to twelve hours. (It lasted fourteen.)

  Then, groceries dropped off at the apartment and the car returned, we had just finished putting away the perishables in the fridge, when Carol noticed the internet was out. Then she noticed so were the lights. Then we learned both the internet and lights were out throughout Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and parts of France, Belgium and the international space station for all the extent of it really mattered.

  It was not an act of terror, which was the good news. The bad news was that the outage was projected to last six to ten hours. But this was Spanish time, which meant eight to twelve hours. (It lasted fourteen.)

  Spanish time or not, the outage threatened all our just-purchased perishables and everything in our refrigerator and freezer prior to shopping, including our inventory of ice. The prospect of an evening drinking room temperature white (in the dark!) was, to turn a phrase, the most chilling prospect of all.

 
Carol kept her concerned family back home up to date, while my own, exhibiting an apparent inexhaustible reservoir of positivity and reassurance, required none.

  My Spanish class was moved to the home of my teacher in town, and on the walk back, I noticed the clock tower above the newly renovated city hall building was frozen at 12: 35 p.m. What a golden opportunity to travel back in time if only we had access to a flux capacitor and a DeLorean.

  Back home, as the black night descended upon us, we made the decision not to waste any of our dwindling ice supply by stretching it over as much of our white wine supply as we could. As each bottle was uncorked, the increasing desperation of our perishable foods seemed to pale in comparison to the little puddles of water that had once been sturdy ice cubes.

 
Yet we felt among the very lucky ones. We’d not been stuck at an airport, on a train, in an elevator or, perhaps most tragically, in a cafe that was suddenly cash only and out of ice. Worst case scenario, we’d have to go shopping all over again in the morning. (I said a little prayer that all available generators were being repurposed to keep all the stores’ ice chests operating throughout the crisis.)

  But the lights came on in the middle of the night, and in the morning the task at hand was to weigh the risk/benefit of our fridge passing the smell test versus  gut wrenching cases of ptomaine.

  So far so good. We cooked up foods we thought better of continuing to refrigerate and have been able to enjoy our return to the 21st century in the living room watching Netflix, instead of the bathroom praying for a quick death.

  We did note that when the lights came back on, we were out of wine.