On Monday the ASU Empire was brought to its knees by one mighty mouse.
Or maybe it was a rat. Or a gerbil. We don’t actually know.
What’s important is that a poor rodent in the electrical grid caused the five-hour power outage on the Tempe campus — the outage that canceled classes, trapped people in parking garages and knocked out Internet access.
While this rodent will probably be quickly forgotten, we need to address the great impact it truly had.
First and foremost, it shut down ASU — something not even the state Legislature has achieved, despite its greatest efforts.
This accomplishment is something we might have expected to see in the cartoons from our youth, though it wouldn’t have had such a tragic and toasty ending for the main character. Think of the devious plots hatched up by Pinky and the Brain.
“Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?” Pinky would always ask. “The same thing we do every night, Pinky — try to take over the world,” Brain would answer.
If this animal had as lofty goals as Brain, it certainly knew the right place to go to.
The power substation it short-circuited was described by one APS repairman as a device that regulates the extreme flow of electricity that comes into ASU from the grid. The flow is so large that even something as big as the Tempe campus couldn’t handle it without the substation, and all of that energy promptly fried the rodent as it moved its way across the switchboard.
For something so small, the impact was far-reaching.
As we reported on the power outage Monday, we heard all about students whose exams were rescheduled, classes that were moved outside and elevators that trapped people inside.
Even we here at The State Press were partially displaced by this animal when our Tempe newsroom lost access to ASU’s network and we moved operations downtown.
Unfortunately for many students, though, the outage didn’t reach all the way across campus. The east side of campus was unaffected, and for students with classes just in that area, the joy reaped from this rodent’s misfortune was lost.
Everyone knows how bad Mondays can be, and we all welcome the chance to ease the transition into the workweek. But now we’ll have to work on overcoming Tuesday as it fills in for Monday.
Another group possibly upset by this event is campus’ cat population. We wrote just last week about the cats that roam the Tempe campus and the group that tries to control them. It’s possible that these cats help keep the rodents away, and they’re definitely always looking for a good meal. (On the other hand, it’s also possible that a cat chased the rodent into the power station that led to its demise.)
Whether your day was made or ruined by Monday’s power outage, it at least brought some excitement to campus life.
If nothing else, as we prepare for ASU Athletics’ big, mysterious announcement Tuesday, it set the stage for a tough act to follow. Maybe this whole thing was the rodent’s morbid way to protest rumors that ASU will replace Sparky.
