Maybe I Should Buy a Lottery Ticket

Let me regale you with a tale of woe: 

It was a dark and stormy night.  The sultry late summer heat had taken its toll on all the citizens of the small town Canadian town of Tecumseh.  Towering clouds were rolling in and an unsteady energy bounced around in the air.  But that didn’t matter… it was pageant night so the entire town gathered into the outdoor venue to see the young ladies vying for the crown.  A young girl sat in the audience, just one year too old to compete in the beauty pageant that shaped her teenage summers.  It didn’t matter that she’d never won… she still loved to participate.  And now she loved to watch.

As the winner took her final victory walk around the stage, beauty and grace quickly exited the scene to make room for complete mayhem and terror.  Lightning lit up the sky and stole the show.  Spirals, loops and ground to sky: lightning was doing things previously not thought possible by the former pageant girl in the audience.  Was this girl scared?  Not at all.  She was delighted!  She’d always been a risk taker and now fancied herself a budding storm photographer. She even had quasi-serious dreams of moving to Kansas someday to chase storms.

The girl, transfixed by the sky, slowly put her fold-up lawn chair back in its bag, swung it over her shoulder and started the 10 minute walk to the car, parked down a residential street.  Her mother walked beside her and they joked and laughed as they watched lightning’s magnificent show. 

In an instant, the girl’s whole life changed.  It happened as if in slow motion, but it must have been fast.  Lightning fast.  Lightning struck the road beside the mother and daughter.  Unbridled energy rippled through the air as the lightning forked and started heading straight for the girl’s head.  She ducked, but the metal lawn chair acted as a lightning rod.  Lightning hit the girl in the ear, knocking her to the ground.  Miraculously, she remained unhurt but for a small entry and exit burn on either side of her earlobe.  However, this girl would give up her storm chasing, lightning photography dreams.  Instead, she would spend the next decade of her life being completely traumatized.

The former pageant girl who was in the audience that fateful night.

So readers, do you want to know something?  That girl was me.  I’ve not always been the girl you know now, curled into a ball on the ground or cowering in a corner.  Those are the effects of trauma on a person.  Just two years prior to this incident, I clearly remember sitting with a friend by the edge of a swamp in the Florida Everglades, trying to snap pictures of a huge lightning storm overhead.  (That was very stupid and dangerous.) 

I’ve alluded to my hatred of storms on this blog before, but I realize I’ve never actually given the reason.  So there it is.  And this was not an isolated incident.  Lightning tries its hardest to strike the same place more than once, or at least the same person.  Lightning has been after me my whole life, both before and after this incident, and I tempted fate too many times:

-In grade school, my school’s chimney was struck, right above my French classroom.  The chimney came crumbling down and a mild electric shockwave travelled through my classroom.  I can still remember my teacher screaming and jumping onto her desk.  At the time, we all laughed, but I understand now, Mlle. 

-The backyard hydropole of the house I grew up in was struck twice.  We lost all our appliances twice due to power surges from the lightning strikes.  Thanks for the new TV, insurance company!

-A tree was struck in my parents' current backyard, rendering our hammock useless.

-On my way out to California, my train was struck by lightning, leaving the navigation system unusable and leaving us stuck in a field in the middle of Kansas for 12+ hours.  (If I had any lingering thoughts of moving to Kansas to chase storms, those thoughts were gone by the end of that ordeal.)

Kansas.  This was our view from the train window.  All day.

-My car was struck on the highway while my husband was driving (I wasn’t in it at the time).  Luckily, that one worked out for the best.  A car is a perfectly safe place to be and a jolt of electricity seemed to fix an electrical problem the car had been having.

-A tree was struck outside my classroom window back home.  (And I, as the teacher, had to appear much braver than I actually was.)

It’ll be a decade this summer since the incident.  I’m getting better.  I don’t have to hide under my bed in the basement anymore.  I no longer cry and rock back and forth in a dark, windowless room.  However, if we happen to be out somewhere together and a storm starts (even if it’s a very distant storm), don’t be surprised if I freak out, seek immediate shelter and refuse to leave (this weekend, my friends definitely saw the worst of me).  Don’t be surprised if I set my phone browser to the local lightning tracker service and refresh the page a few times a minute.  If there is a storm a-brewing, don’t be surprised if I cancel plans. (For example, sorry Fi, but I may cancel our lunch plans this afternoon…. Stay tuned for up-to the minute weather forecasts… it may be cloudy with a chance of brave Stephanie.  I'll keep refreshing my lightning tracker.)

So that’s the story behind the madness…. An electrifying tale of doom.

Driving in a storm... Gripping the wheel for dear life and sitting like a granny, as though that was going to help.