An Electrifying Cautionary Tale

I'm not sure if we've covered this topic before, but I did not really want to live in Florida. But I'm here now and rather like it. Granted, there are way too many strip malls and you can tell just how many too many there are now that most of them are sitting 90% empty and yet we all still manage to find places to buy our pool supplies and get our hair cut. If I had any say in the matter, there would only be one strip mall per 10 square miles and as a condition of leasing out the strip mall, the developer would have to plant full grown oak trees up and down every parking row so that there was adequate shade for everyone to park in the shade.



But one of the things I like most about Florida is the rain. (Seems like I posted a rain video last year, but I couldn't find it in my archives and Blogger is having video uploading issues, so I'm sorry but you won't be able to fully immerse yourself in this blog post about the rain.) Two items of note in the picture above -- 1) the dead Expedition that is delighted we do not live in a subdivision because it would have been carted off to a junk yard by order of said subdivision's HOA in light of its state of disrepair and immobility; and 2) the trench running from the house to the "oasis" area in the middle of the yard -- this is the trench where the electrical wire for the pump lays -- Flamingo Joe has clearly marked the open trench with shovels and post hole diggers standing straight up so that my clients (or Flamingo Joe's wife) don't drive across it and collapse it -- it's now full of water so I'm not sure if that means Flamingo Joe's job finishing up the project will be harder or easier, but I can tell you that while I was washing dishes tonight during that thunderstorm, I was a little nervous with those lightning rod shovels and post hole diggers stuck in the trench right next to the electrical wire for the water pump that was laying in a trench full of water. Maybe it was just me, but the situation seemed ripe for a disaster that would serve as a cautionary tale to all the other wives of men who stick shovels in electrical wire trenches and leave them there in thunderstorms:

Woman #1: Did you hear about that lady who got electrocuted during a thunder storm while she was washing her dishes?

Woman #2: {Audible intake of breath, just short of a gasp} No! What happened?

Woman #1: Well, I guess her husband had been working on the electric wire that went to their well pump and left the trench with the wire in it open. He marked the open trench with shovels and post hole diggers sticking straight up out the trench. Lightning struck one of the post hole diggers and traveled from the post hole digger down the wire to the well, which electrified the water coming into the house and ZAP she fell over dead.

Woman #2: {GASP} My husband leaves open trenches with electrical wires in them and shovels sticking straight up all the time!! That could have been ME!!

So let this be a lesson to us all -- never . . . I mean . . . always . . . I mean . . . just let that be a lesson to you about something.