I was out for 8+ days once. The snow was starting to fall when my electrician (RIP) came with the final breaker for my add-on breaker panel for my new Generac 10,000 I had to wait months for because hurricane Sandy had all the generators from our region diverted to the Northeast for months. Wanna cry about no power? Talk to those folks.
Wife had gone to North Carolina to spend time with her mom (thankfully I am spared those trips) so I was "Home Alone". I was dancing around in my underwear ala Tom Cruise when the power went out and my new genny was running like a top. I had my dish network and a wood stove and the fridges were good! I think I was getting internet on a USB modem back then. Cell AND land lines (we still keep a land line partially for this reason) both went down for a while though. I was a proud prepper. Plenty of food and I had also started keeping upwards of 50 gallons of gas in prep for the genny arriving. I didnt even need to dig out for several days. We had just gotten back to back 18" snows, rare for Central VA, but shiznit does happen here.
It was actually nice bieng disconnected from the world (in a way) for a while. I work from home and can actually work offline if my job has fed me the work prior to "going dark"...as long as the genny is running (I'm salary anyway, but back then getting my checks was the issue). As somewhat of a prepper, I usually have plenty of food for weeks. I've actually cooked on my wood stove and made coffee and breakfast on my
turkey fryer burner before I got my propane ported 6 burner cooktop for the garage and the genny (I also keep four 15-20lb tanks of propane at all times). I can actually use my range now with the genny if I want. Costs a lot of gas but will work. I dont like it when the power goes out, but "an AG district boy can survive"!
This kind of stuff goes to show how close we are to societal collapse. A few EMP's popped over us and this would be our permanent condition for quite some time...
"how many days out of power does it take before you stop trying to turn light switches on?"
Isnt it funny?! I have flipped light switches WHILE holding a lantern! My electrician (RIP) put in an always hot (gonna be a probem for inspection if we ever have to sell) light and switch over my breaker panels to let me know when the power is back on. He had done this before! If you have powered down, off the grid responsibly so as not to backfeed the lines, you dont know the power is back on if runnung a genny!