RECORD STORE TALES #1196: When the Lightning Strikes

Friday night, and we were off to the races.  I live for the weekend, and so Friday June 27 was set to be another one for the history books.  Fridays are a shorter day at work.  We get to go home at 4:00 PM instead of 4:30 which can make a significant difference when it comes to traffic.  Jen had bought a couple decent steaks at a cheap price, so that was the planned dinner.  Steak is always something to look forward to, even when cooked at home in a cast iron frying pan.  (The grill at the cottage is always preferred.)  On top of this, I had the night “off” from doing shows.  The evening’s episode of Grab A Stack of Rock was a fun re-run featuring my good pal Aaron along with Harrison Kopp and Jex Russell.  All I had to do was watch and comment along.  A low pressure evening.

In more ways than one…

A minor seizure derailed Jen, but only for an hour and a half.  She recovered after a quick nap.  We’d have to do dinner after the show, instead of before.  No big deal.  The electricity in her synapses doesn’t always play nice, but she’s definitely doing much better than she was doing only two or three years ago.  New medications have made a difference.

The skies were darker than usual for a summer night in June.  According to the radar, a storm was rolling in.  It had already hit the shores of Lake Huron a couple hours earlier, as my dad told me.

“The power went out a couple times,” he told me.  “The neighbours came over for a visit and they had to stay and wait out the storm, they couldn’t go home.”

Me personally, I never let a little rain get in the way of me leaving a social engagement early, but that’s just me.

“It’ll be coming your way soon,” warned my dad.  I love a good rainstorm.  The harder the better.  A low pressure zone was churning up some thunder and lightning.  It should be a good one.  The rumble of distant thunder could be heard.

Jen made a couple pretty good steaks with enough left over for breakfast the next day.  We settled in for an evening.  I was watching classic Doctor Who on Tubi.  I chose the high-strung Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, because I like his Scottish sidekick Jamie.  I usually watch Doctor Who on my laptop with my headphones, while Jen watches sports on TV.  The lights flickered as a power surge hit, followed by a roar of thunder outside.

“Here it comes,” I enthused.  The power went out twice total, knocking out the cable, but not Doctor Who.  The episode was ending and I removed my headphones.

“Wow is that the rain?” I asked, as I heard the pounding on the windows.  “Good storm!”

But there was another sound.  I thought I heard loud dripping, inside.  I went to check around the front windows, which were soaking wet and dripping all over.

“Holy shit, there’s water coming in through the windows!” I yelled.  I could see it dripping in through the top of the window sill.  This is actually not as big a deal as it sounds, as the windows are all being replaced in a few weeks.  The building itself it currently stripped of its outer siding, as it is being re-finished with a new exterior this summer.  It’s no surprise that a storm of that power could drive water right through the walls with no siding.  Any leaks will be gone along with the old windows soon.  So I was not concerned.  I just wanted to stop the water from coming in and dripping all over my stuff.

“Do you want a couple towels?” asked Jen.

“Yeah!  Great idea!” I said as I moved stuff away from the wall, out of the drip.  There was a lot of water on the window sill, but a couple towels would stop the drip.

I carefully placed the towels along the entire length of the window sill.  They thirstily soaked up water, very quickly, indicating the amount of liquid that we were dealing with.  My fingers were wet as I pushed the towels into the corners of the window sill.

BANG!

Just like that – like a loud fireworks exploding in my face – lightning struck just outside.

Shocked, I jumped and yelled “WOAH!  WHAT WAS THAT?”  It was a completely different kind of sound from lightning that I’m used it.  More a loud pop; like an explosion.  Less a bright flash of light, but more a dark flash of black!  And my fingers were deep in the water when it hit.  They tingled afterwards for hours; almost a day.  My head burst with a headache right at the pointy top of my skull.  I have no doubt that I received a mild electrical shock.

I’m going to tell people that I was hit by lightning.  Why not?  That’s where the electricity came from.  It conducted through the water in the ground into my fingers.  We live in a basement apartment and the window is at ground level.  That’s how I got shocked.  It was mild, yes – but I’m going to use it as a boast anyway.

I felt really crappy all night.  I didn’t sleep well.  I did, however, test something myself.

Lying in bed, I stretched my arms up towards the ceiling fan.  Stretching out my fingers, and using only the power of my mind, I made an effort to move the fan with my new electricity-based superpowers.  Failing that, I tried to make the lightbulbs explode.  That didn’t work either, so in a last ditch effort, I attempted to levitate myself out of bed.

Nothing.

I sighed and slumped back into a restless night, dreaming of flying over the landscape using my new superpowers, and zapping people I don’t like with lightning.  But no superpowers manifested.  I was ripped off!

The rain pattered on and off through the night, but no more water leaked in.  Soon there will be new windows through which no water shall leak.  Lightning seldom strikes the same place twice, and very few people are hit more than once, so I hope my dance with Lady Electric is over.  One of my fingers still tingles a bit.  My chance at being a superhero has passed me by, but I’m still here to write the tale.