when i was about 9
i was at my friend evie's big old victorian house one saturday afternoon. usually we played outside, but that particular saturday, her parents were having a dinner party and we were banned from the dining room. which of course made this previously boring room filled with hard satin chairs and china shepherdesses a sudden bordello of secret delights.

so we were sneakily playing in there when we noticed that the brass lightswitch had slipped and was hanging on by only one screw. fuck alone knows why we decided to be "helpful" and to "fix" it, but we did.

we crawled over to it. essential because the dining room had a serving hatch leading into the kitchen, and evie's mum was in there. however, when standing by the light fitting, we were just out of view of the hatch. evie held the brass switch in place and i tried to push the screw back into the wall.

the next thing we knew, we were flat on our backs a couple of feet away. there had been an audible zaaaaaaaaaap sound, and my right arm was tingling and numb from the finger to the shoulder. i could hardly move it. (neither could evie, but that was more likely because my ballast had landed on top of her).

however, painful lesson though it was, the electric shock was only small, and was not what nearly killed us with stupidity. no, that would be evie's mother, standing in the doorway and breathing fire like a dragon with PMT as she'd looked up to see us flying past the hatch and screaming...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 15 Feb 2009, 19:56, Reply)