It was a dark and stormy night.........no.. really, it was. The typical night when you stay inside, drink some tea, and just relax.... or whatever it is you do on a night like that. Anyway, I decided to telephone my brother and see what he was up to. “Be careful, my father said, there’s lightning out there”. “I’ve never heard about anyone actually getting hit by lightning through a telephone”, I replied. Certainly that is just an old wives’ tale. How wrong I was!

I called my brother and we bullshited for a while. The last thing I remember saying is: “so, how is school goin’ for ya”.....The next thing I knew I felt an intense removal of all of my thoughts. My mind was wiped out. When I came to, two minutes later, I was slouched on the floor four feet from where I had been prior. My first words: “What happened?” My father’s reply, “Holy shit! You were hit by lightning!” It felt like I had experienced some kind of seizure. My left ear and the whole left side of my body was numb. I could not see straight. For a few hours, I was disoriented.

The numbness in my body went away quickly, but for three days I had a bright red burn mark running from my left ear (where I had the phone pressed to my skin) down to the lower part of my neck.

The phone was nuked, roasted, burnt to smithereens. I still have it.

This was an enlightening experience. I am never again going to talk on the phone during a lightning storm.

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