A lot of things are going to make sense after you read this next sentence... I was struck by lightning as a kid.
Ok, not really. Here’s the story ... I was about 12 or 13 growing up in Central Pennsylvania. The house we lived in had a family room in the basement – with a side door that led outside.
It was thunder-storming like crazy one hot summer day – and I was by myself at home, talking on the phone with my good friend Fiona. Just a young gayling chatting with his main hagling for hours and hours - that’s how I rolled. All of a sudden I got an urge to “check on the storm” - so I opened the door (holding the telephone) and stepped halfway outside.
Here’s the part I don’t remember. According to Fiona, there was a loud noise followed by no other sounds besides rain and thunder. Not a peep out of me. This lasted, she said, for about 5 minutes or so – Fiona remained on the line trying to talk to me.
Here’s what I DO remember. Waking up … laying on the pavement outside the door – in the rain – with an excruciating ringing in my ear and the telephone receiver laying beside me. When I figured out where/what/who I was, I let out a blood-curdling scream that rivaled Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween ... or her mother's shrieks in Psycho.
I stumbled inside and hung up the phone (Fiona heard my whole freak-out). My ear was RINGING – but I managed to call my mother who was working on the other side of town. I tearfully blubbered something about being “hit by lighting” – and Mama Bunny high-tailed it out of work and back home.
By the time she got to the house, I was fine. The ear-ringing had died down – and I didn’t have any other physical symptoms of anything. In fact, Mom didn’t even take me to the hospital or doctor. She probably gave me a Bayer aspirin, a hug, and a Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie (or three) and I was good to go. The only thing I suffered from was embarrassment - because the neighbors told my parents they heard a woman screaming hysterically that afternoon. Yes, that "woman" was me.
I’m still not quite sure what really happened. Lightening didn’t actually strike the phone line, because we never lost phone service. But something (lightning?) caused me to pass out and caused my ear to ring.
As a result of this incident, I was hoping to turn into some kind of superhero with freaky powers, something like “Lightening Boy” or “Electra Woman and Dyna Girl”. Fiona could have been my Dyna Girl.
But, alas, I was still just ME… with no superpowers to speak of. Unless you count being able to track down Arby's using only my acute sense of smell.
