Friday Five: It's Electric

This week's Friday Five:

1. What's the dumbest thing you've ever done with electricity? Nothing, as far as I know. I've never really played with electricity, at least outside of science classes. From a young age, I was always like, "Danger! No touching!"
   
   
2. How did you last pass the time when your residence was without power for at least a few hours? The last time my residence (actually, the whole province, plus eight US states) was without power for a significant amount of time was during the Northeast Blackout of 2003. (Even during the December 2013 ice storm blackouts, my house was connected to the part of the electrical grid that had power.) I remember it was the summer before senior year of high school, and my cousin Janetta and I were downtown, shopping at the Eaton Centre. We were inside Urban Planet (or Urban Behaviour?) when the power went out and all the stores had to close their gates, so everyone was slowly evacuating the mall. We thought it was just the mall that blacked out, but as we got outside, we realized that all the streets were without power, too. It was mayhem because all the traffic lights were out, subway trains stopped, pedestrians were everywhere, and none of the vehicles could move. It took hours before the police could get to all the intersections to direct traffic. (Some good samaritans actually helped to direct traffic at intersections with no police.)
   
   We spent the afternoon walking down Queen Street, getting cheap pizza and free ice cream because none of the eateries had power. After hours of trying to call our parents from our phones (cell reception was down), Janetta finally managed to reach her parents in the evening sometime in the evening, so they called mine. We finally found a taxi on a side street who was willing to take us back uptown (gas pumps weren't working, obviously, so cabbies were really picky about passengers they'd take on). My dad picked us up at the subway station that the cab dropped us off at. By the time I got home, it was already late, maybe 10 or 11. My parents lit all the candles we had in our house, and then we ate the carton of ice cream that we had in the freezer. And then I went to my room and read a book by flashlight. I was still reading when the power came back on around 3:00 in the morning.
   
   
3. Around how many AA and AAA batteries do you have on standby? I have an eight-pack of each in my house at all times.
   
   
4. How do you feel about lightning? I was scared of it when I was a kid, but I love watching it now. Kinda stupid, but when there's a storm, I actually go on to my porch to have a smoke and watch the rain and lightning.
   
   
5. When did you last dance the Electric Slide, and if you've never done it, what's the closest you've come to dancing the Electric Slide? When I was a kid, maybe 9 or 10. My parents used to take us to these fancy New Year's galas, and as the night went on, the adults got really into line dancing (they were also probably quite drunk, though we were unaware at the time). I didn't know that it was called the Electric Slide back then, but my parents definitely dragged us out on the dance floor to do it.