I appreciate all of you who have been reading my posts and have sent heartfelt messages my way. I have been posting a lot of deep conversational posts and thought I would delight you all with an embarrassing yet oh so funny story about myself. It’s good to have some light-hearted stories mixed in with the deep topics. So let me tell y’all about the time this past summer I accidentally electrocuted myself. I am not talking about a small shock either, it was a full blown electrifying moment that was so powerful my teeth clenched shut. I’m laughing just thinking about this, so let’s get to it. Before I start with how it happened, I should let you guys in some key points about who I am as a person.
Sometimes I am oblivious to my surroundings. It’s not that I don’t see what’s around me, I do, but sometimes it doesn’t fully click until I make that ‘ah-ha’ moment. I also have this trait about myself that I see and believe the good in everything. It’s not always a bad thing, but sometimes it leaves me a little naive. I live in central PA so I am surrounded by farmland. I have cornfields surrounding my house in every direction, including diagonally. The farmer behind my house has a dairy farm. Seeing cows literally in my backyard is not unheard of. My dad and I will feed them the scraps of cut up fruit or whatever food we don’t eat from our house, it’s mostly just fruits and veggies. Usually the cornfields around my house have corn growing in them, (ironic right). When he doesn’t have corn growing, he plants sunflowers the whole way down each field. So this past summer, the field behind my house was full of sunflowers. I was waiting each week to see more sunflowers bloom, they are one of my favorite flowers. The field to the right of my house, is where his cows were grazing. I seen them there for the last week or so but haven’t had the chance to visit them.
One day, after my hair appointment I decided to go visit them. Cows are so cute, they are like giant dogs. There is no giant fence, or any wooden fences that separate the field from the road, or the field from my side yard. But there was this “string” that lined the fields surrounding my house. I spent maybe thirty minutes petting the cows and taking their photos. When visiting the cows, my leg kept touching the “string” and it didn’t do anything but tickle. I didn’t realize in the moment that I was touching the string, I just assumed it was the flies that were around the cows. As I was standing there admiring these giant grass dogs, I thought to myself, “Wow he has his cows trained well, they won’t leave this field. They really are like dogs, they know where they can and can’t go.” I was so impressed and obviously naive.
The next day I looked out my window and seen some sunflowers finally starting to bloom, so I figured why not go down and see them in person and maybe take a few photos of how pretty this sunflower field was turning out to be. As I got to the end of my backyard, I seen this short sunflower right at the front of the field. I thought to myself, that is the perfect sunflower to capture in my photo. I captured a few photos of the sunflower and it was beautiful. As I was taking photos, I noticed there was a bee on the sunflower. Bees are my favorite and I love seeing bees. So I figured I would try to get a close up of this bee enjoying its time on this sunflower. I couldn’t zoom in enough to see it in the photo, so I decided to get closer to the sunflower. This is where the story starts to get good.
I lean over the “string” to take the photo and my arm moved just the slightest bit and all the sudden my arm with my phone in hand, hits the “string.” As I fell backwards, and my teeth clenched shut and I was jolted with electricity, I realized it wasn’t a string after all but an electric fence. I sat up with my teeth still clenched shut and asked myself, “what the hell just happened” and immediately started laughing. I literally just accidentally electrocuted myself because I thought this electric fence was string. I started to laugh more when I realized no wonder the cows don’t try to leave the field, they don’t want to get zapped. This is the moment that I realized these grass dogs, were in fact smarter than me for a moment.
You better believe I have photos of this event. Since I was taking photos of the sunflowers and I had my phone in my hand, while being electrocuted, my finger actually snapped a shot of the sunflowers on my way down. I can only imagine what my face would have looked like if I had my camera in selfie mode. Probably wide-eyed and my teeth clenched into a silly smile, well that’s what it felt like anyway.
This is my go-to story any time there are awkward silences when meeting new people. It makes me laugh just thinking about it, so I figure why not tell complete strangers the type of person I am and make them laugh as well. I think laughing at yourself in these silly moments make life more enjoyable. I still laugh anytime one of my friends or family members bring this story up at the dinner table.
Don’t take life too seriously and enjoy everything that makes you, you.
-Allie
Living Overload 