Rude awakening

Every morning there comes a moment of awareness - I'm awake. [pause] Why am I awake? - sometimes it comes following the annoying buzz of the alarm clock, sometimes it's the dog needing to go out, and sometimes it's your kid is trying to tell you that she had a bad dream. Today I was roused to consciousness thanks to a REALLY LOUD BOOM followed by an eerie envelope of stillness. It was like when there's a huge clap of thunder that almost seems to make your entire house vibrate punctured by the silence that makes you notice that the thunder is gone. I glanced at the clock, which was blank. Confused, I tried to turn on the TV, and when that didn't work I stumbled out to find my cell phone. The time said 6:45am.

I was not the only one awake - I ran into a neighbor in the hallway who was coming inside with his young son (where were they coming from at 6:45 in the morning?). He said that he'd heard it too and noted that the building's 'power off' alarm was beeping and that the emergency lights were on in the hallway. Still confused and barely awake, I went back inside and called the local police station to ask what tha what the what had happened to my electricity. The person who anserwed their phone patched me through to 911, despite my sleepy protests that I didn't think it was an emergency, I just wanted to know what was going on. The 911 operator asked me what happened, I said I wasn't sure that this classified as an emergency, but was patched through by the police. I told her that I had been awakened by a VERY LOUD BOOM at around 6:45am and I had no idea what it was, but that my apartment complex seemed to be without power. Confirming that it was not a weekday and I wouldn't oversleep and be late to work, I fell back asleep.

I still don't know what happened to create such a cacophony. But by the time I woke up again around 10:30am, the power was back on. Weird way to start the week.