How to Avoid Lightning

JACK BROWNELL is in an advertising firm, in New York. This is his first appearance in the ATLANTIC.

Each year, when the thunder-and-lightning season comes around, I start preparing for my annual fight against total destruction. Up until now I have managed to keep a slight edge. But my wind is getting shorter, I am less agile on my feet, and the law of averages being what it is, I figure that my time must be running out.

Annually, as a kind of solace to my insecurity, I get out books on What To Do in Case of Lightning. I study them carefully, lip-reading the instructions. But I don’t feel any better; in fact, I feel a lot worse. The trouble is, the rules committee have not come up with a set of rules that everyone can agree on.

For instance, one theory says if I happen to be standing out in the open and I am the tallest thing around, I have a better than even chance of ending up a petrified local attraction. My question is, the tallest thing around where? My back yard? My town? My state? Or there is the Cone Theory. This says: “An object will shield an area within a radius of one or two times the height of the object.” But when Mother Nature is bombarding me with lightning bolts, the last thing I want to be doing is measuring the height and radius of things. Nor am I impressed by the Magic Three Theory, which reads: 1) if you heard thunder, the lightning didn’t strike you, 2) if you saw lightning, it missed you, and 3) if it struck you, you don’t know it.

When dealing with lightning outside, the experts say that I must avoid standing under trees, sheds, or any other normally comfortable shelter. The idea seems to be to get me to run out into the open where it is raining the hardest, find the wettest gully, and dive into it face down. Apparently this is done to fool the lightning into thinking that I am a wet bump or mound in the ground, so it will go away and strike someone else. (Actually, I think it is done to make me feel so wet and miserable that I won’t care if I am hit by lightning or not.)

The safest place to be in a storm is inside a car, because it is perfectly insulated and well grounded. But never in the history of thunderstorms have I been within striking distance of my car. When the first drops start falling I am usually miles away on a deserted moor or lonely beach or the fourteenth hole of the golf course.

While outdoor rules are designed to leave me wet and miserable, the indoor rules are not much better. For instance, according to the books, the safest place in my house during a storm is inside the furnace or refrigerator. But as my refrigerator and furnace are always pretty well occupied at the time, I am left to wander aimlessly around the house. And this, I am led to understand, narrows my chances of survival considerably.

I am cautioned not to turn on the TV set or radio or talk on the telephone. I must stay away from the fireplace or open windows, because lightning may sneak in on the draft. I mustn’t touch the piano or run up anything on my sewing machine. And even the plumbing is dangerous.

Since this leaves me pretty much at loose ends, the rules committee have developed what they call the Iron Bed Theory. They suggest that I lie down on an iron bed, away from the walls, not leaving an arm or leg hanging out to break the circle of immunity (whatever that is). I haven’t tried this theory, and I don’t think I will. I don’t mind lying down, but what would get me nervous is just lying there thinking. While the thunder is crashing overhead and the lightning is flashing, my past would rush before me. I would be frantically trying to get my affairs in shape, promising myself that if I ever got through this crisis I would take that job as missionary. And then I would begin worrying about the iron bed. Suppose it wasn’t made of pure iron? The rules committee specifically recommend an iron bed. But suppose the ironmonger, to save iron, had sneaked in some alloys — alloys that actually attracted the lightning rather than chased it away? How would I get any rest then?

In addition to my uneasiness about the Iron Bed Theory, I have just learned another fact that makes me believe that I have been living in a fool’s paradise anyway. I had always thought that lightning came down from the clouds to the earth. So I figured that if I remained fast on my feet I could dodge the bigger bolts and take my chances with the smaller ones. But now I learn that lightning starts from the ground and jumps up to the clouds. That means, if I happen to be the chosen one, the bolt is really right there under my feet all the time.

I haven’t figured out a strategy to counteract this particular danger. But I am working on it. All I can think of at the moment is to wear thick-soled shoes — and jump a lot.