One of my Dad’s favorite past times was (and still is) scaring me to death and I liked to return the favor. Unfortunately, there was always an innocent bystander. My mother. It seemed to never fail that my mother would walk into one of our well thought out schemes. It’s amazing that the woman isn’t on a wide range of tranquilizers after the years of torture we put her through. While my dad would jump out from behind doors to scare me and I would shake up some carbonated beverage for him, it was always my beloved mother who ended up the recipient of our trickery.


There was one particular incident that was strictly a bonding moment for my dad and I. Oh yes, it involved my mom in the biggest way. One in which just the very mentioning of it to this day, causes her lips to pull together and her eyes become nothing but small slits of anger. It was an innocent enough prank; especially, since it was an impulse move on my part.

First it will help if I give you a little back story on this issue. My mother has a fear of lightning. A sever fear. She grew up in Southern Florida and to her credit there are some pretty intense and freaky lightning storms there from time to time. My entire life I’ve heard the warning from her not to take a shower when it’s lightning and don’t talk on the phone when it’s lightning because a light pole could get struck down the street and the lightning would travel through the line into the phone and strike you while you talk on it. Mom had a ton of warnings but these two were always included and she was adamant that if we performed either of these acts the curtains would be closed on our existence. I often wonder if that would happen by an act of God or by her for disobeying. I never tested it. Until one fateful night…

This was in the time when cordless phones had first become all the rage. We had one and loved it. Especially mom because she could move about the house working and talking on the phone without hanging one of us with 50 foot of phone cord. On the night in question, we were sitting around the den watching TV and cutting up. It was storming outside. The lightning lit the windows and the thunder shook the glass. Mom started on her soapbox about the evils of appliances versus lightning. Dad and I rolled our eyes as she muttered on. I remember the debate a little like this:

“You can’t talk on the phone when its lightning…it’ll hit a pole…travel through the line…strike you right then and there” firmly stated mom. My response: “What about the cordless phone? How can it travel to it when there’s no line?” Dad chimed in with “Yeah, I guess it would chase you around the house until it could strike you down deader than a doornail”. He snickered. I giggled. Mom glared. We teased her for a few minutes. Then, as if on cue, the phone rang. Me, being the teenager I was at the time, was the closest to the phone. Mom promptly advised me not to touch the phone. “DO NOT TOUCH THAT PHONE!” Dad and I looked at each other and at that moment an unspoken pact was made in our eyes. I reached for the phone and as I picked it up, bringing it to my ear, I shook my entire body making a “zit…zit…zit” sound. Two things happened spontaneously. My mother swore like a drunken sailor and my Dad burst in to laughter so hard he had tears rolling out of his eyes. Afterwards, my mom stormed up stairs swearing with every step she took (something about getting our come uppins) and she didn’t return down until the next day.

A side note. A few years later, a friend’s husband was talking on the phone when lightning struck a transformer. The current traveled through the lines ending at the phone he was on. The current knocked him across the room. I don’t answer the phone when it’s storming now. Sometimes, mother does know better.