I was outside at the Petio Grill, soaking in the evening sun, my wife Mia handling a basket of laundry when it happened.

Behind me I heard the dryer click and whirl and die.

At the same time the lights flicked off, I heard me kick the machine and jostle a little bit

before cussing toward the door.

She was waving for me to come in and check the generator, so I turned

the grill on low and used my phone as a flashlight to find the evidence in the bathroom.

I told her I'd report an outage to the company and logged into the account as I pushed a window open in lieu to get fresh air.

That was when I saw the real issue.

Our bill hadn't been paid.

I saw me standing there on the doorway waiting for an explanation,

and I held a finger up as I called my bank

to figure out why the payment didn't go through, like usual.

15 minutes later, after staying on hold with an automated message and arguing with a rep about what my online banking had said my balance was less than a day ago, I soon found out that nothing I did was going to get our power back on quickly.

The payments I had made yesterday had gone through first, resulting in an overdraft fee,

and therefore my routine bill pay couldn't be covered.

When I told Mia, she blew her top and yelled in my face.

When are you ever going to get our finances straight?

She asked me as she threatened to call her mom so she could have a cool place to stay for the night.

I was too tired to frustrated to argue.

So, I went out for a walk.

My steps eventually led me to the neighborhood bar.

A friend of mine named Tony greeted me at the door.

...