Ah, Monday. I’m waking up to the world full of thunder today. New Moon thunder. Spring thunder. Social media thunder. Interstate thunder. Political thunder. Rumble, boom, shudder, groan.

Did anyone else grow up with dire warnings from elders about indoor deaths due to perilous acts of conducting lightning? Of course you did. We all learned from someone who heard about it from someone else. Things I was told not to do during a thunderstorm:

• Take a bath or wash dishes
• Use the telephone
• Watch TV
• Stand or sit near a window
• Stand or sit near an electrical outlet
• Operate any electrical household appliances
• Hide under a metal-framed bed (or try to sleep in one)
• Much later in life of course, use a computer

My favorite author is Alice Hoffman. Her novel The Ice Queen is about life after a lightning strike. I highly recommend it. Passages from this book still come to mind years after I read it. But for now I’d better log off. Staying online long enough to debunk indoor lightning myths might be the death of me. I’ll be back after the storm passes. Unless I get zapped while brushing my teeth, in which case, it’s been nice writing for you for a while.

***

I’m back. All good. My frag today is a gem.

Years ago I used to participate in Poetry Fridays with a creative writing group. We got a prompt on Monday and posted a finished poem by Friday. One week I read an awful love poem (so described because I find all love poems awful) with an awesome first stanza:

Dear God, strike me with lightning instead of love…

I have appropriated this phrase often over the years any time I want to be relieved something; only I don’t invite lightning so I chose poetry instead.

Dear God, strike me with lightning poetry instead of another hour in this car…

Dear God, strike me with lightning poetry instead of this alarm clock…

Dear God, strike me with lightning poetry instead of this holiday ham…

The first client of the day walked in stinking of the reefer so badly that after the client was gone someone joked, “The office smells like they just dimmed the lights at an Aerosmith concert.”

Dear God, strike me with lightning poetry instead of this odor…

Back in the ’80s Aerosmith released a song called Lightning Strikes. The song is about about a fight rather than a weather event, which is the same reason the client darkened our door this morning.

Dear God, strike me with lightning poetry instead of this irony…

Quite a poetic start to the day.

— Mercy