So, about this ‘darkest city in the world’ thing. I’ve seen that phrase pop up, and you know, my first thought wasn’t about some place up north with no sun for months. Nah, my brain doesn’t work that straightforwardly, I guess.
It didn’t make me want to go digging through travel blogs or scientific papers about light pollution. To be honest, I didn’t really ‘practice’ finding that specific city. Instead, it just kicked off this whole other train of thought, a memory, really. And that memory, well, that felt pretty ‘dark’ to me at the time.
My Own Kind of Dark City
It reminds me of this one time, not too long ago, when I was trying to sort out a ridiculous electricity bill. I mean, ridiculously high. Like, way more than it should have been. So, naturally, I decided to call the power company. Simple enough, right? Wrong.
First, I got put on hold for what felt like an eternity. You know the drill, that awful music looping over and over. Then, I finally got through to someone. I explained the situation, nice and calm. They said, “Oh, you need to talk to the billing department.” Okay, fine. Transfer me.
Another round of hold music. Then the billing department person listened, and said, “Hmm, that doesn’t sound right. You need to fill out Form X27-B and send it to us.” Where do I find this magic form? “It’s on our website,” they said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Of course, the website was a nightmare to navigate. Took me ages to find the form, buried under layers of menus.
I filled it out. Scanned my old bills as proof. Emailed it all off. Waited a week. Nothing. So, I called again. Explained the whole thing again. This new person, bless their heart, had no record of my form. “Did you get a confirmation email?” they asked. Nope, no confirmation. Great.
- I must have called them five or six times over the next few weeks.
- Each time, a different person.
- Each time, a different piece of advice or a new hoop to jump through.
- “Oh, you should have called this other number.”
- “No, that form is outdated, you need Form Y34-C now.”
- “Our system shows your usage is correct.” (It clearly wasn’t!)
It was like talking to a brick wall, a very confusing, bureaucratic brick wall that kept changing its story. I felt completely powerless, lost in their system. Nobody seemed to know what was going on, or they just didn’t care. I was just a number, an angry voice on the phone. That feeling of being stuck, of no one listening, of just going around in circles with no light at the end of the tunnel – that was a pretty dark place to be in, mentally.
So, yeah, when I hear “darkest city in the world,” I don’t picture a geographical location. I picture that mess. That feeling of being completely in the dark, trying to get a simple thing done, and hitting nothing but dead ends and confusion. That’s my darkest city. And honestly, I think a lot of folks have their own version of that kind of “city” they’ve had to navigate at some point.
