Was not expecting power flickers today

 

So wrote an American friend of mine on Facebook.

Okay, so I first read that as a Spoonerism. I thought she must live in an unusual climate, if she got flower pickers in January. 

Then I thought about it, read it right, and decided she must be accustomed to manual flickers, so power flickers would be an interesting novelty. (I did not know they had mechanised tiddlywinks in the US, but I suppose somebody has to spoil everything sooner or later). 

I thought I should point out that I am old enough to have driven cars that did not possess any kind of flickers, and in which even the wipers worked off engine pressure, so they slowed down when you drove uphill. 

Then, at about the fifth attempt, I figured out that she was referring to periodic interruptions of her electricity supply. 

Two nations divided by a common language, or what?