All I can say is that I’m lucky I live in California.
We were in the early stages of Christmas dinner with our friends, Debra and Ernie, when the stove flickered off.
Frustrated, I moved the cauliflower and truffle soup I was preparing to a different burner, assuming that was the problem. But one after another, I tried all five burners and got no flame. And then a sinking realization washed over me — I rushed out to the propane tank, checked the meter. It read “0”. In other words, empty.
(For those of you big city dwellers who live your lives in piped-in natural-gas comfort and have no idea what this means, here’s a crash course: We country folk have big propane tanks outside our houses and have to have gas delivered. Usually this is no problem, as we pre-buy our propane and the propane companies are good about not letting their customers’ tanks run low. What a time for them to fail their charge!) More