Our first clue that the appliances were turning against us was when the oven refused to heat up. It happened at the worst possible moment, of course: A night when I was supposed to be going out for a belated birthday dessert with friends, and my husband would be getting home late after picking up our eldest daughter from a class and our youngest from a playdate. Feeling like I had it all together, I’d tossed some food into the oven to cook while I walked the dog and did the poultry chores. Twenty minutes later – just minutes before the other hungry half of our family would arrive expecting dinner – I checked the oven to find it still stone cold.

My husband saved the day, as usual, by cooking our dinner on the stovetop. In the process, he discovered that our microwave seemed to be acting up: It made a sound like a car revving up, indicating that it was working only intermittently.

It was dark by the time our dinner was ready, so we turned on the lights.

“Wait, are the lights flickering?” one of our daughters observed after a couple of minutes.

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