It’s Electric, I’m Electric

By: Elizabeth Redhead Kriston

Electric Boogie By: MARCIA GRIFFITHS

It's Electric!

You can't see it
It's electric!
You gotta feel it
It's electric!
Ooh, it's shakin'
It's electric!

The ubiquitous wedding reception song, Electric Boogie, haunts me. Not only am I the only person of my generation who has no idea what to do when the beat starts and girls scream as they jostle for position amongst the lines and rows of other dancers of the Electric Slide, I feel like the song lyrics are taunting me (or as my husband would say, “tauting me”).

It took a while, but I finally realized that I am electric (not in a good way). It first happened as I walked down the road on a bright and sunny day.

I walk at least two miles nearly every day of my life. I usually walk with just my thoughts and the sounds of the small town in which I live to fill the void. It is very relaxing.

Recently, I started using my IPod on my walks so I could listen to an audio book. It was a really good book and I couldn’t break away from it, not even for my daily walk which was meant to recharge my mind and spirit as much as keep my aging, creaky body in shape.

Little did I know that I was recharging myself in other ways.

I pushed my earbuds in and headed out. About ten minutes into my walk, I felt a prickling sensation in my ears. It was annoying, not painful. I wiggled them around it hopes of dampening the sensation and kept moving forward. It happened again. The annoying prickles returned. They were disturbing but not enough to make me stop listening to my book. Hey, it was a pivotal moment in the story.

The more it happened the more perplexed I became.

I attributed the sensation to static electricity. It was a cool, dry day and I was walking fast so I just ignored it. However, once it started happening each time I went on my walk it became so annoying that I removed the earbuds just so I could enjoy my walk.

One day, I casually asked a friend, who also walks, how she tolerated being electrocuted by her earbuds. She looked at me like I was insane. Confused, I inquired as to what I said that made her look that way, or if I have something in my nose? She said she did not get electrocuted by her earbuds. I scoffed. She followed up with that was “not a thing” that happened to normal people. And then she rubbed her nose which made me think it was a sign I needed a tissue too.

I was confused.

I inadvertently both infuriate and amuse my husband. Nearly every time I try to turn the TV on or work on my computer, something goes very wrong. The buttons don’t respond to my touch. Random error codes flash on the screen. Inevitably, he has to spend copious amounts of time resetting and reprogramming our electrizicals (a word for electronics coined by my youngest).

Even worse is when, despite multiple attempts, I cannot get a device to work then he walks over, pushes one button, and voila, it works. Rather than being sympathetic and supportive, he mocks me and my ineptitude as if I did something wrong. He always ends these interactions by saying something like, “see, I told you there is nothing wrong with it” implying, not too subtly, that there is most definitely something wrong with me

These interactions require that I sit on my hands so I do not strangle him and his smug look .

Overtime, I began to question my physiology and realized, that yes, there is something wrong with me. Sigh, I hate when he is right. This new realization became painfully clear on that day when I was running on the treadmill. As I ran listening to music, I felt a shock of electricity course through my body. It was brief and minimal. The treadmill shut-off. I paused and then decided to start running again.

I ran for about five minutes when, ZAP, it happened again. This time, I was slightly more concerned, but I kept running. The third time I vibrated with electricity, I got scared and exited the treadmill deciding it was not worth dying to get a few more minutes of exercise.

I went upstairs and sat in front of the computer deciding completing some paperwork was a better choice. The second I touched the computer in it shut-off. The screen was bright blue with the standard screen saver bubbles happily bouncing around one second and the next, nothing but the matte blackness of a dead computer.

Poof everything was gone. 

I sat in stunned silence for a beat. Then I realized that my electrically charged body caused my computer to self-destruct in a heartbeat. There was no denying that something was very wrong with me. And damn-it, I had to ask my husband for his help again, sheesh.

I can’t even wear the ubiquitous Fit Bit or other fitness devices like my lesser known “UP” band. Not only did it frequently malfunctioned, but it caused me to have a tingling sensation all through the arm I wore it on. In fact, I interfered with the inner workings of that electrizital so badly that it got red hot and self-destructed. The company was incredulous, but agreed to replace my malfunctioning band. I never told them the new one broke too.

Eventually, I had to acquiesce that I am not wired right. But whose to say it’s wrong wiring? It’s Electric. You cant’s see it. You gotta feel it. I’m Electric!