A few seconds later, I heard the whirr-click-click of the answering machine — even though the phone had not rung. The ceiling fan emitted a high-pitched hiss and I looked up. Was it my imagination, or was the fan suddenly turning at half-speed?

I shook my head and turned back to my barbecue sauce, which was still bubbling on the stove. Moments later, when I opened the fridge to get the chicken, the bulbs were bright.

The great blackout of 2003 had struck, leaving thousands of people stranded on subways, trapped in elevators and stuck in traffic — and millions more facing a night of spoiled food, crashed computers and no TV.

At my house, it was nothing more than an eerie brownout.

———

The day the power almost went out, I was thankful to be living in a city with only a handful of elevators and glad my refrigerator was half-empty.

I found it ironic that the barbecue sauce had been my only cooking for the night: Dinner was to be chicken, potatoes and corn — all cooked on the gas grill. I had candles and coolers, bottled water and board games, a transistor radio and an old-fashioned phone that's not plugged into an outlet. But the lights didn't even flicker.

The next day, I was haunted by images from the evening news: New Yorkers streaming across bridges like ants crawling out of the city; firefighters lifting an elderly woman out of an elevator shaft; Times Square with no neon lights.

I did not see footage of children trapped underground in stalled subway cars, asking their mothers over and over, "Why aren't we moving? When can we go home?" But these images haunted me, too.

As power was gradually restored, the president called the outage a "wake-up call." Task forces were formed, fingers were pointed, "I told you so's" were issued. I did not hear much talk about conservation or alternative energy sources.

———

A lot has changed since the last big Northeast blackout, which left 30 million people in the dark on Nov. 9, 1965. Back then, people did not have personal computers or microwave ovens or remote-controlled TVs and VCRs and DVD players, or even cordless phones.

Back then, people did not talk on cell phones over lunch in restaurants so cold that you need a sweater in the middle of summer. Back then, more people thought about turning off lights when they left a room.

Like last week's power outage, the 1965 blackout was perceived as a wake-up call. People realized how dependent they'd become on electricity and vowed to be more conscious of their energy consumption. The utility industry formed coordinating councils and power pools and vowed to make sure such a large outage never happened again.

Not only did those efforts fail, but we've grown even more dependent on electricity. American companies use more energy than ever before, in applications ranging from air-conditioned offices to automated assembly lines.

Some people may be conscious of shutting down computers when they're not in use, buying energy-efficient appliances or setting their hot water heaters to come on during the night, when power is cheaper. But I bet most homeowners don't realize how much they pay each year for standby power — energy required by common household items such as microwaves, answering machines and VCRs, even when they are not in use.

———

How many people are really prepared to lose power? How many families have woodstoves or gas fireplaces, Coleman stoves or gas grills, bottled water and canned goods? How many people still have manual can openers?

It's easy to see why people in other countries, where energy is precious and power outages are common, are laughing at us: the world's superpower, so quickly rendered powerless.

Now more than ever, I admire the few Americans who are self-sufficient; who live off their land and have stockpiles of bottled water and firewood and candles; who could survive without power for a week or more.

As for me, I'll continue doing all my writing the way I always have, ballpoint pen flying across lined paper. I use the computer when I must, to get my words from Point A to Point B, but I don't trust it.

I'll just have to plant a tree or two to make sure I never run out of paper.

————

Lisa Miller is a freelance writer who lives in Oneonta. She can be reached at lisamiller44@hotmail.com.