Nothing reminds you how fragile modern life is quite like standing in a darkened Costco, cart full of perishables, wondering if the free samples are still safe to eat.

A power outage knocked out electricity at Costco and spread across several San Francisco neighborhoods, including Pac Heights and areas around Van Ness. PG&E reportedly texted affected customers with restoration estimates, but as anyone who's dealt with the utility knows, those timelines are more suggestion than promise.

One local noted that "Brownie's Hardware on Polk and Sacramento is somehow the only place in the area with power. Brownie's… for all your blackout needs!" If that's not a case for shopping small and local, we don't know what is.

The cause of the outage remains unclear, though one SF resident reported that "Van Ness and California had a bunch of fire trucks show up at the same time" — which could be related or could just be a Tuesday in San Francisco. Another resident shared that while power eventually came back, Comcast internet stayed down, because of course it did.

Here's the thing that should bother you: San Francisco residents pay some of the highest utility rates in the country, and PG&E has collected billions in rate increases ostensibly meant to modernize infrastructure and prevent exactly this kind of disruption. Yet outages remain a regular feature of city life. We're not talking about a wildfire zone or a freak storm — this is a major urban center losing power on what appears to be a normal day.

PG&E emerged from bankruptcy in 2020 with promises of a more reliable grid. Five years later, we're still watching the lights flicker. At some point, the city — and state regulators — need to ask whether ratepayers are actually getting what they're paying for, or whether we're just subsidizing a monopoly's inability to keep the power on.

In the meantime, maybe stock up on flashlights. Brownie's Hardware apparently has the juice.