randoMatt

When I was seven, a bolt of lightning ricocheted off a tree in my back yard and struck my house. It entered my parents room and destroyed every electric appliance in the room. The TV screen was black. All the outlets were charred. And there were 20-30 Kleenex sheets stuck to the walls. The glass fuses in the main breaker box had melted together to form a single mass.

I was napping in that bedroom five minutes before the strike. And I think it messed me up a bit.

I used to have recurring nightmares where my dad would be sitting in his ratty orange swivel chair in our den. I would crawl over my dad’s lap to peer over his shoulder out into the back yard where a storm of K-T Extinction Event proportion would be brewing in the distance. As soon as it came remotely close to the house (being a dream, it moved fast) I’d wake in a cold sweat.

Flash forward a few years later. When the skies would open up and thunder was crashing all around, I’d stand in the middle of my street (it was a cul-de-sac in a smallish town). Without a shirt on. And I’d yell to the sky/god/whoever was listening to go ahead and give me their best shot. Strike me down where I stand.

To this day, I’m not exactly sure to whom those acts of defiance were aimed at. I’m also not 100% if I ever vocalized my anger, or if was all in my head. I was never struck, but I was often soaked.

I no longer leave my fate up to Thor and will usually seek shelter when the skies get stormy. But I’ll still turn off all the lights and gaze out the window and watch the show mother nature puts on for me.

Tonight was an exceptionally loud and bright presentation, and all the action seemed to be happening 10 miles south of my house. The local Doppler radar suggested it wasn’t headed my way. So I told my wife I was going for a drive and I’d be back.

I’ve told her half-jokingly on more than one occasion that I was gonna drive out and chase the storm down but never actually done it. Tonight felt different. I have to see this storm. I have to be right in the middle of it.

As I walked out the door, I was temporarily stunned by a huge flash directly overhead followed by a sharp thunder crack. Not the low and rumbly kind, but the kind that lets you know Mother Nature can be a real bitch. And it was awesome.

So I took a left out of my development and drove straight towards the flashes of light. If you’ve never experienced a southern thunderstorm, it’s intense. I’m talking massive bursts every 2-5 seconds. And Charlotte has one of the highest occurrences of cloud-to-ground strikes. And these flares were much larger than average.

The white flickering filled up my car’s windshield as my anticipation grew. I envisioned the middle of the storm feeling like a scene from Saving Private Ryan with thunder crashing all around me and lightning bolts striking down trees as I drove by.

I didn’t hit the rain until 15 minutes into the drive. It was a wall of water blowing sideways. I’m thinking “Ok, here’s the good stuff. Maybe I’ll even see some golf-ball sized hail!” I kept driving straight along the same road another 15 minutes until I was smack dab in the middle of the storm.

It was nothing like the scene I constructed in my head. At all. It was rainy. And it was flashy. But there were no bolts to be seen, and you could hardly hear the thunder. I reached a point in the road where I had to turn either left or right. So I turned the car around and headed back home.

I hate to think that I wasted an hour driving without being dazzled by jagged bolts illuminating the sky. There has to be some kind of life lesson here. So here’s my best shot at pop-philosophy.

• Some things are best observed from a distance.
• Be satisfied with what you have. (I should have walked back in the house after that magnificent thunder clap right before I got in the car)
• Avoid setting expectations over things in which you have no control over.
• Ignore sunk costs. (I could have kept following the storm and continued my disappointment in the slim chance I’d see something awesome)
• Some situations look really intense/violent/exciting/promising from an outside perspective, when in reality, they aren’t.