“Why isn’t the electric grid fixed right now?!” we all hollered out at our television screens last week as ERCOT asked us to think about maybe turning up our thermostats a bit. It’s not as though the state was trying to work through issues that took decades to manifest and were not solved after the previous round of rolling blackouts. After last year’s case, we needed the problem fixed immediately.

ERCOT, mind you, did not issue a warning that rolling blackouts were imminent. They just said, “Hey, guys, if we maybe increase our thermostats a few degrees, it’ll take pressure off the power plants.”

ERCOT has been vocal about how a request to conserve is different from a demand. I would argue you don’t get be 40 years old and single by having a strong ability to read between the lines, so I understand folks who would like a clearer explanation about the difference between a request to conserve and a demand. Maybe a request is a demand if it comes from, for instance, Alice Kramden but not ERCOT.

“Hey, guys” is Level 2 on ERCOT’s 5 level warning system. The emergency doesn’t start until Level 3. Level 4 is getting serious. Then Level 5 is rolling blackouts.

By Monday morning, everything was back to normal.

After urging conservation to avoid emergency operations this weekend, ERCOT says grid conditions are normal this morning. ERCOT says 1 MW can power about 200 homes during peak demand. pic.twitter.com/TitAUdCl07

— Alan Scaia (@scaia) May 16, 2022

After arguing about whether the virus knows if you’re Republican or Democrat and then arguing about a Supreme Court ruling that hasn’t, technically, been issued, ERCOT gave us a new political issue to fret about on social media.

“Are we pro-electric grid or anti-electric grid?” the consultants and public relations managers of both gubernatorial campaigns asked each other in darkened, smoke-filled rooms. “Where’s the latest Gallup poll come down on artificial sources of light?”

More pragmatically, ERCOT reports they expect record demand this summer, but they plan to still have 14,000 more megawatts available than demand during peak levels.

Nevertheless, Loyal Scaiaholics will recall we once traversed a list of potential options for a post-radio career. We may also introduce “ad writer for political campaigns.”

“Oh, Candidate One claims to support a stable electric grid,” an attack ad might say as a minor chord plays softly in the background over a black and white picture of a power line. The ad might replace ‘Candidate One’ with an actual name, but a third of us don’t know who our governor is, so ‘Candidate One’ might be what the consultants suggest using. “But the Consortium for Power Line Autonomy has secret audio of Candidate One agreeing to keep the light on in his toddler’s room all night after the child had a bad dream.”

After the music changes a lighter more fast-paced tune to extol the virtues of Candidate Two, his or her attractive family will be seen walking toward the camera through a field, holding candles and smiling reassuringly.

Then Candidate One’s commercial starts.

“Candidate Two is running attack ads professing how he or she supports a stable electric grid,” the commercial, voiced by a gruff-sounding man who just found out his HVAC repair will cost more than he expected, opens with the same minor chord. “But here’s a picture obtained by the Utility Pole Confederation showing someone dump a liquid into Galveston Bay. It could be an unrelated person, and the liquid could be water [pause, with the music getting louder and building to a climax] but it could also be Candidate Two dumping a cooler full of natural gas.”

I use this blog to joke, but as a journalist, I want to offer full disclosure: I’m in favor of electricity.