Am I on the List?

January 21, 2007

With the passing of the Winter Solstice, we see the prevalence of darkness in our day-to-day life here in the far north. Our morning sunrise is around 9:30 to 10:00 am and goes down around 3:15 pm in the afternoon which doesn’t leave much time for ‘fun in the sun’ time each day. Case in point, when I take my granddaughter to the daycare in the morning, it's dark outside. When I pick her up after work, it's dark outside again. Does her little body yet understand the effects of the daylight? When I am in my office at work it seems that your life is in a perpetual state of darkness as usually there is no time to ‘look outside’ seeking the daylight. The only time I really see sunlight is when I am out of the office calling on clients or days during the weekends when you may be out and about during the day finishing chores.

Which brings me to the point of my entry today . . .

When your life is in a state of perpetual darkness, you tend to notice the importance of lights. Any type of light seems to get noticed. Street lights, store signs, house lights . . . you name it and they become important to you. I think we unknowingly seek them out and possibly stare longingly at them as we make our way into the store. We are happy to see the golden arches or the big red KFC sign beckoning us inside. Those familiar signs shining brightly piercing the darkness and making us feel welcome and ‘normal’ again.

When they suddenly fail next to you . . . you notice. Lately, they've all been failing on me when I pass by them. It's starting to worry me. Am I an energy drain in my local area? Am I on the list? Who’s to say?

I drive by random street lights and they turn off. I flip a switch to turn on a light at home and the light bulb burns out. Walking by a nightlight has caused several to burn out lately. I stopped at a gas station the other night and the security light above me burns out. And sometimes it's not just the lights; it seems to be anything electronic. Digital clocks suddenly change time or lose their setting. There have been hard drives burning out, processors failing when I get near them, the radio in my car suddenly changing stations without touching any buttons. My daughter’s ipod suddenly losing all of its settings when you try to check something out or adjust it. I get my cell phone ringing with no one there several times a day.

Perhaps it's all random coincidence. If so, I should probably buy a lottery ticket, because everything I've described above has happened in the last couple of weeks. Not only that, it's been happening for the last several months and it seems to be getting worse. Am I on the list?

Even my son questions why the lights always go out around me. The only answer I can give him is . . . "I dunno . . . maybe they've all got faulty wiring".

It's probably just my mind recognizing patterns where there are none. I hope so, because it's starting to drive me nuts. The true irony of this crap is that my expertise is fixing broken stuff. I guess I'll never be short of practice . . . Either way; a part of me is starting to wonder if this kind of thing happens to other people?

Anyone out there have my kind of odd luck?