If You See That Girl, Please Send Her Home

Going through whole days alone changes me.  More accurately, wounds me.  I imagine my belly growing exponentially.  Helicopters fly closer to my house than they should.  If the Smurfs appear on television, I watch them.  I turn up music and sing along so poorly, my 20 pounds of housecat considers sauntering off to watch the old episodes of Gunsmoke in the spare bedroom.

I returned from Ohio by myself late last Wednesday night and have been spending whole days alone since.

The flight into Bozeman was interesting because I met a know-it-all couple from Virginia.  They quickly insisted I was wrong about Mount St Helens erupting in 1980.  I was, they similarly asserted, incorrect in identifying the old man who refused to leave Spirit Lake (and died in the eruption) as a certain Harry Truman.

“That’s close,” the wife insisted, “but that’s not his name.”

I freely admit I am a full-blown dumbass with a poor memory.  I therefore shrugged off Harry and the volcano.  But our conversation became slightly disturbing when the subject turned to lightning—spurred by a fierce lightning storm brawling inside a brooding cloudscape within arm’s reach of our jetliner.

The husband informed me that their house had been struck by lightning. 

Bad electrical stuff happened when the lightning flashed through their house.  Appliances popped apart.  Smoke emerged from wiring.

He then went on to tell me about how corrupt the practice of grounding a house is.  Apparently, according to some inspector dude he personally knows, grounding your house makes your home a lightning strike target.  Just the opposite of what all our electrical Codes suggest!

“That’s amazing!” I said.

I pretty much kept to myself after the lightning discussion.

And now I’m home alone.

That girl will not be flying home until the fifth of August.  That’s a lot of time for watching the Smurfs.  I’m not sure my cat is up to it.  I know that girl worries about what I eat while I am foraging for myself, but I'm more worried I might take up slam dancing with the walls in my house.

I’m wondering if I should run outside with a screwdriver and disconnect the grounding electrode connection at my electrical service.  I also picked up a new poetry book, which is always a little dangerous.

--Mitchell Hegman