Static
by The Pirate

lightning-bolt.gifI am buried up to my neck in an immersion course on some pretty nasty scientific-type shit, so I yanked this fucker from my stash of buried treasure. It has significance in that while I’ve just experienced a lull in the frequency of attacks over the past few months, the wrath of God has once again descended upon me and I am getting shocked, badly, every few minutes.

My new mission in life is to find out WHY I constantly get static shocks when nobody else seems to. I mean, I get shocked every day, all day long. No matter where I am, or what I'm doing; everything I touch shocks me. I often get horribly jolted-like electric chair style, too. I'm not talking about those little punk-ass sparks that I've seen the rest of you lucky bastards get, once in a while. I mean the eyeball popping, shit your pants, foaming at the mouth, jerking at the chair restraints variety that leaves my hair smoking and my eyeballs poached in their sockets. Fucking lightning bolts from heaven and the smell of ozone in the air. I remember working in an office where I would complain about my condition, daily, to my co-workers. They shrugged it off till the day I passed by a metal desk chair and it sent one of those fucking lightning bolts across a foot of empty space, stabbing me in the kidneys. Everyone saw it AND heard it. My co-workers shied away from me after that...

I'm not an overly religious man, but sometimes I think there must be a God and he has drinking buddies. They sit around on the couch pounding pints of Guinness and every so often God goes," Ok, watch this" ...ZAP! And he and his beer-soaked pals have a laugh-up. Once the giggles subside and they clean up the spilled beer, God readies another fucking poke at me and everyone leans forward, the bowl of popcorn, forgotten....

Well, this cosmic joke has finally reached its pinnacle. Two days ago a stream of WATER in the bathroom shocked me. Water people-I was attacked by WATER, the shit you’re supposed to bathe in and drink to stay alive. If you think about it, the next shock might come courtesy of a stream of urine and I can't go there. I'm scared and fucking done playing around. I was taught the scientific method in college and I must confess I never really had much use for it, until now. If it takes until the day I die (from repeated and prolonged exposure to static electricity, most likely), I will unravel the mysteries of the cosmos to determine the root cause of my misfortune. I will find a solution to this, even if only for some other poor soul who suffers as I have. I have already formed and discounted several hypotheses: A person's water intake. Being mildly O/C and having a fixation with getting enough water, I tend to over-hydrate and then ignore fluid intake for days at a time. No correlation there. NO, I don't shuffle my feet either, dammit. I do spend an inordinate amount of time on computers (14 hrs/day), but I suspect there are plenty of you out there that can top that and are not walking around like Mr. Twitchy here. Where does that leave me? Does anyone out there have any ideas??

The Pirate wants you to pull his finger ...

Any Port in the Storm Archives

Comments

Simple. Just follow with me here.

Satan's minions have built in electrodes so that when Satan needs one of them back in hell, all he has to do is send out a special signal and the minion gets a shock and knows it is time to come back. Sort of like a Tazer-by-The Force.

What's happening here is you are basically God's divining rod. He is using you to figure out where Satan's minions are. Every time you get a shock like that, it means there is a minion nearby. You helped God find an agents of Satan! Then he sends some agents down to grab him. One less Satan's minion in the world.

Keep up the good work, Pirate. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.

--------------


So, what your saying is that I should be filling my hollow points with holy water?

I can do this.

--------------


I'm not an overly religious man, but sometimes I think there must be a God and he has drinking buddies.

That is, hands down, one of the most awesome quotes I've ever read.

--------------


Why thank you, Uber. To me, it only figures that if you're god, one of the first things to do would be to create beer and some drinking buddies.

--------------


What's happening here is you are basically God's divining rod. He is using you to figure out where Satan's minions are.
Either that, or Satan's getting really pissed that you haven't come back yet...
--------------


That is, hands down, one of the most awesome quotes I've ever read.

I concur...I am sooo ripping this one off

--------------


Speaking as a guy with neurological problems: uh, you might want to see doctor about that.

--------------


i totally agree with Michelle about the Satan thing.

--------------


Well, I think you'd be the first to admit, you don't seem to be very well grounded...

--------------


You know what? I bet Al Maviva is on to something... I bet it's your shoes and that you don't touch things regularly to bleed off the static buildup. Does this happen when you are just in your bare feet?

I used to help at my son's preschool and they had a game where the kids would slide down the slide and someone else would stand next to it with their finger extended - as the slider went by, he would touch the finger and a big fat static spark would jump. This happened after the slider traveled only about 3-4 feet down the slide.

--------------


I had a similar problem some years back, albeit a more subdued version. One winter, I literally became afraid to get into a car. Not just mine, but anyone's. No matter what I did, I somehow built up a charge that would put a Leyden jar to shame. I would put my feet down on the ground carefully and try to pull my hand away from the vehicle. I quickly found out that slow or fast didn't matter because I was going to get s shock that made me go "Fuck-Fuck_FUCK!"

I finally found a way to survive that winter: I would put one foot onto the ground while keeping my ankle in direct contact with the metal chassis. As soon as I let go, the static would discharge through my ankle into the ground. It stung a little, but my pants and socks blocked most of it and I didn't go around screaming all of the time.

It's never happened again since. My suggestion would be that you find away to stay physically grounded until life starts giving you the finger.

--------------


Ok Pirate Im gonna go a little geek here but I use to work in the electronics industry and we used what we called "ESD control"
Electrostatic Sensitive Device
protection Electronic part are sensitive to statice zaps and we used clothes and Shoes that would drain the charge out of your system, no shit I have used them in the winter time when anything I touched would send me on my ass So google "ESD Shoes" and find some new Kicks. and stop zaping yourself

--------------


I don't know really, Pirate. Can't put my finger on it, exactly.

There's something about you that just pisses me off.

--------------






eXTReMe Tracker