Lighten The Lighted Room With Lightning

Have you heard someone say, "That guy said he'd be happy when he's dead.  No, he won't be happy.  He'll just be dead."?

Pretending to be otherwise.

Do you know someone who has been hit by lightning?

Have you?

Today, I'm using a regular rhythm of writing to record not quite a preposterous event but one where I saw the end of my life flash before my eyes.

Let the euphemistic clichés fall where they may.

My wife asked me, if I had time this afternoon, to pick up two metal racks that hold scrapbook paper.  The shopkeeper who sold my wife the racks is closing down her business, low sales and negative profit a direct consequence of poor access to the shop due to road construction.

At the shop, I looked up to see dark clouds quickly towering ominously (omnivorously?) overhead, with lightning bolts lighting up the space between sky and ground.

At the shop, I was carrying two metal racks, one at a time, from shop to automobile in electrically-charged air.

I imagined death by lightning strike.

I imagined a maimed body somewhat still alive after a lightning strike.

Hurriedly, I drove the back roads of the construction detour back to my domicile and unloaded the racks.

Afterward, I stood in the shelter of the garage and listened to the crack of lightning and boom of thunder getting closer and closer.  I stepped back into the garage a little.

I reimagined death and maiming.

I walked into the sunroom at the back of the house to more safely listen to the crack of lightning and boom of thunder getting closer and closer.

I watched lightning strike the top of the house, bounce into the air and return to a set of black metal shelves a few feet in front of me, the lightning turning into a big electrical ball and the metal shelves making a loud popping sound like popcorn, firecrackers or the trailing edges of large fireworks.

Have you ever had lightning strike the ground in front of you?

Can you remember the smell immediately afterward, the rush of adrenaline pumping through you as one or two more close strikes exploded around you, making your lack of escape routes as plain to see as the beating heart in your ears reminding you of your near-death?

I AM STILL ALIVE!  AM I?  YES, I AM STILL ALIVE!

Did my hair stand on end?  It felt like it did.

What else did I feel?  I wish I could slow down the moment during and after the lightning strike, putting into words the compression of my life and quick run-through in a split-second of the last 30 minutes or hour of my life.  It felt like I knew I was going to get struck by lightning if I didn't take normal, everyday precautions.  It felt like a lot of things in that tiniest of exciting moments in my life.  I could spend paragraphs listing the various thoughts and emotions that literally flashed in my eyes.  I wanted to savour the moment for just that very reason.

However, after the intense feeling of being more than glad to be alive, I rationally realised my house had been struck by lightning.

I asked myself, "Should I go outside and look at any damage, especially fire?"

CRRRACK!  BOOOOOM!

Maybe not.

Then torrential rain and the unlikely chance that fire would burn already-wet wood kept me in the house and searching for internal damage (of the house, not me).

I've compiled a list of nonworking electronic devices: a few surge-protected power strips, one nonsurge-protected power strip, a surge-protected UPS (uninterruptable power supply), a Blu-ray DVD player, a DVD recorder, a DVD/VCR combo, a cable television set-top box, a laptop computer power supply, a desktop computer (power supply?) and a garage door opener.  Oh, and one electrical circuit in the house that's stopped working.

I'll have to survey the exteriour of the house with my wife tomorrow.

Will and Richard (who lost his home to a fire in January), folks at the local hardware store - Lowe's - helped us find a new garage door opener.  Michelle and William at Cheeburger Cheeburger helped us calm down after an exciting evening of sorting out the damage.  Wal-Mart sold us with new surge-protected power strips.

My guess is the lightning struck the satellite television receiving dish on the chimney and arced over to the cable television coax cable, burning out the RF receivers in many electronic units in the house.  Why the DVD players don't work but the TVs do, I don't know.

The rest of the world appears to be in crisis (if you believe the news) and here I am worried about a few fossil fuel burners.

So much for a carefree staycation!

I've borrowed my wife's laptop computer power supply from her HP laptop (same voltage and amperage as my defunct one) to power my Compaq laptop so I could write this blog entry.

Tomorrow, you'll find me standing on a ladder replacing a garage door opener (3/4 HP chain drive - rrrrrrr!) in between finishing up the last of my census work and checking in the mirror to make sure I really am alive to be happy to be alive.

That's all the news that is new in this humble abode I call my stay-at-home, all-season holiday house.  Time to return my wife's power supply and lumber into slumber.  Time for sleep - I had my tumble - I'm not ready to rumble right now.