Many priests were gathered for Vespers during an ecumenical council at the Vatican. Right in the middle, the power went out, and the priests were cast into darkness.

Without missing a beat, the Benedictines continued on in prayer with the liturgy of the hours from memory.

The Franciscans immediately broke into spontaneous praise for the gift of darkness and light, marveling at God's creation.

The Dominicans broke into a debate about the significant of darkness and light.

The Jesuits broke into a debate about whether or not this excused them from their obligation to pray Vespers that night.

Meanwhile, the diocesan priest excused himself, went to the cellar, and changed the fuse.

Fuses. How quaint.

Hey, the Vatican is an old building in an old city. It's entirely plausible.

"The Vatican" is not a building

Huh? Are you suggesting that fuses don't exist anymore? I've never seen a building that didn't have a fusebox, including every building I have ever lived in.

A bunch of old buildings, then. Picky.

Usually filled with circuit breakers.

I have a box of replacement fuses under my sink right now, which I use whenever the power goes out, and the building I live in was built in 2001. Every summer, when it is hot and everyone in the building (except me) is running their air conditioner, the power goes out at least once and I have to go to the basement and replace the fuse to restore the power to my apartment.

Interesting. I would have thought most modern construction used breakers.

At any rate, my main purpose was to taunt Mrs. Timmy. Facts are helpful but not necessary in such an endeavor.

Why Father! You go to such trouble for little ol' me? I'm flattered!

The only item that used actual fuses was the pool filter. Everything else is connected to a circuit breaker with switches, not fuses.

Going without AC is the sign of severe mental illness.

I'd rather go without supper and have the AC on.

When we first moved to Virginia from up in yankeeland, we looked at a bunch of apartments around town, some of which did not have AC. I kept saying, "well, I mean, we don't really need AC, do we?" We did, in fact, wind up in an apartment with AC. I am so glad. I had no idea how essential it would become for me!

But up there in yankeeland, air conditioning is still fairly rare. OK, I don't know for sure how rare it is, honestly, but when I was a kid, nobody I knew had it. Nowadays, I think some people are getting it put in, but most of the people I still know up there don't have it. You really don't need it. Yes, it can get pretty hot, but evening comes and things really cool right down. And the really hot days are not common. You get an uncomfortable week or so every summer and that's that.

I've lived in some old houses but all had circuit breakers (I assume they had been upgraded at some point). Heck, our current house still has some knob-and-tube wiring and has circuit breakers.

That might be the case in say, Vermont, but down here in PA and NJ the humidity is such that it doesn't cool down much in the evening - or at least not to a point at which one is comfortable. We don't have central air but we do have window units.

Yeah, you're pretty far to the south of the north. I think Doom's closer to the north of the north.

We lived in mid-OH for a few years before moving to VA. Yes, it was much hotter and stickier in OH than it had been way up north, and actually we bought a window unit for our bedroom while we were there.

When our house was built it had an attic fan. Sadly, it has been covered over. I loved those things (Aunt had one in the farm house). You really could move enough air to keep it reasonably cool with an attic fan.

Besides the fact that air conditioning makes me severely physically ill, it gives me headaches, clogs my sinuses, can even make me vomit, there is also the fact that if turn on the air conditioning, then I will be evicted because with a $300 electric bill, I won't be able to pay rent.

We have weeks on end where it is over 100 degrees with super high humidity and I keep it at 68 degrees at night. Even then, our old, drafty door jams, 2 bedroom house never has a bill higher than maybe $180. How on earth can you run up $300???

A normal month when I'm not even at home 12-18 hours a day, my bill is $50-$60, and that's when rates are at their lowest. In summer, with peak usage, rates are even higher and running the air conditioning 24/7 for three months, and the bill is easily going to be at least 5-6 times bigger than normal. And don't say 'well, don't run it 24/7', because constantly turning it on and off uses up even more electricity and causes the bill to go even higher, just turning it on and leaving it on nonstop is the cheapest possible option.