Be careful where you point your rocket

Saturday night my power went off. It didn't just go off in a traditional post-catastrophe way. The lights dimmed down to almost nothing, then periodically flashed on like a strobe. It was Halloween weekend. It was New Orleans. And when I looked out the window it seemed that I was the only house on the block that was having any problem. I called the landlord, who was out somewhere and promised to come by, then called back to say that several of his friends where having the same problem--so it wasn't just my house. I tried turning the lights out, but the power buttons on the appliances were still blinking at me, and the sound of the refridgerator surging kept me up most of the night.

On Sunday I discovered the trouble: Someone had launched a confetti rocket outside of Mimi's on Franklin Street, and it lodged itself in a transformer. Maybe things were back to normal after all!