I was telling Toby the other day about why I am somewhat nervous scared shitless around electricity. He said I had to explain it here.

When I was about ten, my dad would take make me go me out to our farm to help out. I really wanted to be playing baseball with the town kids but nooooo, I had to go help. be bored out of my skull.

One day he is fixing the electric fence around one of the pastures.  He says to me, hey check if the electric fence is working now…it’ll  just give you a light shock.  Being ten, I did it.  I didn’t feel anything when I touched the wire,no shock.  I tell him so.  He then tells me to take this wrench, (made out of freaking metal),   hold it to the ground and, at the same time, touch the electric wire.  And, of course, I get this shock of my life as the current runs through me, and down through the wrench as a perfect ground. It lights me up so much that I think it stunted my growth. Gawd! I think I wet myself.

Story number two about bad electricity: My mom had MS. Back in the early 60’s, there were a lot of home remedies and myths about MS…and how one could ‘get better.’ One remedy was to have this battery-type device, that was literally a car battery that delivered current through two leads, like your jumper cables. It had a crank on it and the more you cranked it, the harder the shock. My job was to do this for my mom. She would hold on to the lines and I would crank like crazy, basically trying to shock her synapses into working again. talk about quackery.

I remember her arms jumping, just like the cartoon characters who put their fingers in the socket,  and as I was shocking her, she was saying “more-more-more.” It was very painful to watch.  I felt like the sadistic guy at the electric chair who gets to pull the lever, and the guy in the chair is yelling “I love this!!”

I did trick some of my friends, though, into coming over to hold on to cables as I turned the little crank-thingy.  I loved doing this.

That’s why I have a hate-love relationship with  electricity.

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