By Dr. Gregory

Are you all as tired of the Great Times Square Blackout as I am? What? You haven't heard of the Great Times Square Blackout? Why, it's been on the news non-stop for more than 24 hours now. Oh, I see. You perhaps know it by the name of the Northeast Blackout. Well, I guess technically you are right,
since it did indeed involve seven states, another country, and at least 10 non-New York metro areas.

But, of course, watching CNN, MSNBC, Fox or any of the other channels, you would never know it. For them the blackout affected New York, and New York
alone. Well, if the truth be known, they seem to believe it affected only Times Square. I mean, I didn't actually see any footage from any area other than mid-town Manhattan, so as far as I'm concerned, the other blacked out areas are sheer rumour.

I was first alerted to the blackout by my Mom from California. She called because she had heard the blackouts were spreading West, and wasn't sure if they were reaching south to us as well. They weren't, but we wanted to know what was happening so immediately turned on CNN. There were the correspondents in Times Square, talking about how all of New York was blacked
out. Occasonally they would break to an "eye-in-the-sky" kind of report that showed a clogged Manhattan and people walking across bridges. This was all very exciting, and we watched to see what would happen.

Somehow, three hours later we had completely lost interest in NY.

Bit by bit we had learned that this blackout was affecting places like Toronto, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Erie, Ottawa and Albany. Of course, we never saw or heard much about these inconsequential places. But really, you couldn't fault the news networks. I mean, how could, say, the complete shutdown of a nuclear power plant near Erie compete with the drama of:

NEW YORKERS ARE WALKING DOWN STAIRS!

And does the fact that thousands in Canada's capital of Ottawa feared that their nation was under attack really matter in light of the fact that:

NEW YORKERS ARE HAVING TROUBLE WITH THEIR CELL PHONES!

Then there was that time that Cleveland almost hogged the limelight with their pitiful "our 2.5 million residents have no drinking water" story. The CNN anchor was just mentioning it when:

THIS JUST IN! TONIGHT'S BROADWAY PERFORMACE OF THE LION KING HAS BEEN CANCELLED!

We were then treated to 50 or 60 New Yorker-on-the-street interviews. You know, to get a New Yorker's perspective on the Times Square Blackout horror. We learned that Patty DiRamio was working at her desk in her sixth floor office when "All of the sudden the lights went out. Nobody knew what was
happening. I had to walk down SIX FLIGHTS OF STAIRS to get out." James Torcadiglio had a different story "I was working at my desk in my 10th floor office, when suddenly the lights went out. I had to walk down TEN FLIGHTS OF
STAIRS to get out." It has been rumoured that residents of other blacked out cities also walked down stairs to get out, but most New Yorkers remained skeptical.

The last two items I saw before finally turning the TV off in disgust started with the sheer terror of New Yorkers dropped by no-longer running subway cars at UNFAMILIAR STATIONS! The anchor told us quite emotionally about New
Yorkers who were aimlessly wandering around the streets without the faintest clue of their whereabouts. I can only imagine what was going through these unlucky victims' heads:

"Let's see, the last stop I remember was 107th Street, and then the train stopped. I think the next stop should have been 113th or maybe 115th. Oh God, I don't know. I mean, I know that I hadn't passed 119th street because that's where Patrick gets off and he was still next to me. Oh dear Lord, where am I? I could be anywhere. How will I get home? Oh God, I live at 123rd street. How far can that be? How far will I have to walk? I'd better call Susan and let her know I'll be late. Oh...oh...OH NO GOD NO! My cellphone won't work!......"

And just as we thought we had seen the worst, our CNN anchor lowered his voice, and in a dazed manner described the picture we would now be seeing. The TV switched to our eye-in-the-sky helicopter, where we were informed we would be seeing a truly terrifying sight, something that had never been seen before and God willing, no human being would ever be tormented with again.

And then we all saw the gut-wrenching sight:

THE DARKENED SKYLINE OF MANHATTAN! OH GOD! WHERE ARE THE LIGHTS? WHERE ARE THE LIGHTS????........