A few summers ago, okay like eight summers ago, me and a friend were visiting some her her friends in South Mississippi. There had been a tornado go through this city the previous week (interestingly enough this was one of the cities majorly affected by Katrina) and we were amazed by all the damage. We had gone to eat at a Mexican restaurant and were all bored, so we decided to go home and drink.
Our timing was impeccable as it looked like a storm started brewing just as we were headed back home. So, we're going down the interstate and the lightening starts. Off in the distance we see a cell tower get struck by lightening, complete with sparks flying everywhere. Amazed, we all three lean into the windshield (single cab Ford Ranger) to "whoa'' the cell tower. At that exact moment my friend's windshield is struck by lightening. Now, I'm not quite sure how to describe this but imagine a camera flash magnified about ten times and about six inches from your face. And the sound, hmmm, a few times louder than the kind of thunder than shakes things. My two friends who were sitting on the outside (I was in the middle) said they could feel the electricity course through the vehicle. Yeah I'm glad I don't have that to add to my trauma.
So, we're all temporarily blinded and screaming and apparently swerving all over the road because when we finally could see we had gone from the far left lane to almost running off the right shoulder. Great. Escape death once, shame on death. Eh, nevermind.
Anyway, we hadn't realized when the lightening struck that it actually didn't hit the windshield, but her driver's side wiper blade, completely eliminating it from existance. Now, this is not good since we are on a major interstate and rain is now coming down in sheets. So we're all trying to navigate, scared shitless, to the nearest exit. We make it off the interstate and to a gas station. We run, literally screaming, through the rain as if acid is falling from the sky to melt our skin. Once inside the gas station/truck stop, we just all kind of have nervous breakdowns. I'd left my cigarettes in the truck but wasn't about to go back out and get them, so I bought a new pack and a lighter. (I'd left my ID out in the truck and was only barely 18 but I looked about 15. The guy asked me if I had my ID and had just witnessed my breakdown. So I start crying again going, "Are you KIDDING me?!" "Um, yeah", he says. "I was - Don't worry about the ID." LMAO)
So the friend we were visiting called her parents to tell them what happened and asked them to come get us. Know what they did?! They LAUGHED at us. I am not kidding. They thought we were making it up. Thank the goddess there was a truck driver sitting close by to us who heard us rehashing the experience over and over like the traumatized teenage girls we were and offered to look at my friend's truck. He checked the electrical and switched the passenger wiper blade to the driver's side so she could see to drive. And we made it home safe.
Now, the following week when my friend reported the incident to her insurance company, the agent wouldn't believe her about what happened. He had to come see it himself, as he had just never heard such a story. Never mind the wiper shrapnel embedded in her hood.
It's been eight years and there still isn't a thunderstorm that I don't think about that night. Wonder if there's a word for phobia of lightening?
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