From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. today, residents in the whole area of Dagupan City and I believe, some neighboring towns in the province, experienced a day long brownout. This, according to the electric company, was essential to keep up with their upgrading and maintenance work.

Okay, so the natural initial reaction would  be - “Ohhh noooo!” And then the next move would be  - to wake up early, take a shower, press the clothes to be worn for the day, fill up water containers (it was announced as well there would be no water supply for the duration of the brownout),  check emails, re-charge cellphones, and do all the necessary things around the house that required electricity, before the outage.

Ummm.. on the contrary however, I took my time. I woke up at my own leisure (7:58 a.m.) as there was no kid to send off to school since my daughter is already done with her final exams and our Junior, who is a student nurse, is in Manila for his affiliation at the National Mental Hospital, and of course, the eldest son is also in Manila working.

I did not bother fill water containers and our clothes were all pressed by the ‘labandera’ (laundry woman). The only hitch was that I could not heat water for my morning drink in the microwave oven so I had to use the stove which gave my coffee an unpleasant taste.

When I had to take a bath, I used the ‘poso’ (artesian well) to draw water - which me and my daughter alternately toiled on. The whole day, I relished the laid back life -  no radio, no television and no computer.

Towards midday, I lounged at the living room with my daughter. She had her pocket book, I had my law book. There was no TV to gawk at, no computer to tinker with. We just sat there with abaca fans in our hands to keep away the heat which would otherwise be warded off by airconditioners or electric fans on ordinary days.

I enjoyed my day. I kinda missed the laid back lifestyle when I was a child - when we were not slaves to technology and addicts of comfort.  I was happy today and in a way ’thankful’ to the brownout because I realized that sans all the modern trimmings of life - I knew I could survive.