The Dragonflies Didn't Want Me Dead

I can't recall ever before having a short version of a long story. You are in luck today!

Short story...I should be dead. My life was saved by dragonflies and $3 shoes. The End.


I have spent a week in self-imposed computer lockdown because I could not find time (or something) during the past two years to manage to finish 24million Continuing Education Hours (read this as TESTS) that I have to turn in the the great state of Kansas---umm, tomorrow.


I left work Friday evening determined to pick up children, shove food at them, and work until my eyes quit. Well, that didn't happen. I can't exactly recall what did happen but for sure that wasn't it.


Saturday morning I got up too early, came out of my room, and was instantly depressed by the amount of crap that I had to navigate to get to the caffeine. It was an obstacle course of everything anyone has had in hand (and just left where ever it landed) for what looked to be a year or two. Ugh.


Caffeine helped, but just barely. I went out on my front porch and, I kid you not, there were half a billion dragonflies in my front yard. They were everywhere! Woo-hoo! I actually smiled. In the A.M.! A dragonfly landing is good luck, you know this. Well, they landed on me, on everything I own, on things I wish I owned outright, everywhere. I wanted to call everyone that I knew could use some luck! I am telling you...half a billion dragonflies in my front yard. Good luck for me, coming right up!


I went back in to the scene of the crime and started a load of dishes. And laundry. And packing all of the children's worldly possessions back to their own rooms. Talked to my brother on the phone, warned him of the impending blizzard. He has 4-wheel drive or would have been concerned about the effects of my doing dishes on the course of nature.


I was on a roll. Hot damn. You should know that until a month ago I have had a housekeeper for the majority of my adult life. It was a condition of marriage. Not for me. For him. He knew I was that bad.


I can't think, any regular day of life, of anything I like to do less than clean. Dentist? Yeah, there is that. Other than that...nope, nothing, nada. Cleaning=punishment in my head. Anyway, there I was enjoying cleaning up after all the little piggies.


Then the part of my brain that remembers who I am reminded me that I was only cleaning to avoid doing the work I HAD to do. I told that part of my brain to shut up and folded 47 loads of laundry. I cleaned like a crazy woman for hours and hours. Finally, when I located the top of the stove (yes, the same one I cleaned cobwebs out of the last go-round), I noticed that there is actually some instruction about removing and cleaning the vent filter printed inside the vent. In my newly discovered OCD-induced delusional world it seemed like a good idea.


I removed the vent. Success. Removed the filter. Success. VACUUMED the crud that was left in the filter's spot after not moving for roughly five years. Yes! Again, success. I am a cleaning machine.


Friends, Acquaintances, Random Internet Yay-hoos, pride will get you every time.


The opening for the vent leads to another opening for some fancy stove related something-or-other on top of which are the knobs. The knobs that bring hot. I could see ancient spaghetti in that little space with the wires. June Cleaver would not have let that be.


I don't know if it was my cleaning-high-Martha-Stewart-sized ego that led me to believe I was an electrician or my actual complete idiocy about all things requiring electrical current to function that led me to think I could reach in that tiny space where 487 wires live. It got a little fuzzy in my head...


I touched a wire. A HOT ONE. Hot should not be the adjective used to describe live electric wires. They are not hot. Hot is in no way adequate to describe what comes out of there. There is no word for what the wire brings.


That tiny wire started in my finger, raced to the tip top of my giant head, through every stupid filling in my stupid teeth both coming and going, down through every cell in my body (Turns out there are waaaayyyyy more of those than I thought. I felt each one. Individually.), and down to the soles of my feet. I thought I was dead. Content that my body would be found in the midst of so much cleanliness, but still dead. I looked down at my fiery feet and laughed. Laughed hard. Laughed hard and outloud. Obnoxiously loud.


I don't have a real cleaning uniform for the one time a year it is more fun than whatever else I need to do. Yesterday, for instance, I wore $3 RUBBER flip-flops. Yep, that buzzing stopped right at the soles of my feet.


My experience with electrical burns is even more limited than my experience with loading the dishwasher. The rest of my body quit buzzing after a few minutes. The finger that touched the wire didn't quit buzzing for hours and hours. Weirdest feeling that turned into a nasty burn.


So...the dragonflies clearly brought me the best of luck, in spite of myself. And $3 is exactly the right amount to pay for a pair of life-saving shoes.


The whole almost dead experience got even funnier to me today. My best friend Marcie had been sending me messages all weekend because she has had my birthday gift for weeks and we will both be working on my birthday. I saw her this afternoon.

This is the sign Marcie gave me for my birthday. The day after cleaning nearly killed me. She also calls me on the days my child is admitted to the hospital before she knows that he was. She is good like that.

Oh fine, at 4:30 this morning I told the children I was no longer speaking to them, started testing, finished at noon. No worries. My license doesn't expire until Tuesday! ;)