And you thought you had a bad day....

[Lugnutz]

The setting.

We have the standard 6ft. wood privacy fence in the backyard. Years ago, I woke up one morning with my neighbor's dog in my yard and our dogs in the neighbor's yard. Seems they both dug under from either side and met in the middle.

To make sure this never happened again, I got an electric fence and ran a single wire along the bottom. Actually, I did it pirate style and overkilled it. I got the biggest cattle charger Tractor Supply had, made for I think 6 miles of fence. I then used an 8 ft. long ground round, drove 7.5 feet into the ground. The ground rod is the key. The more you have in the ground, the better the fence works.

One day I'm mowing the back yard- cheapo walmart 6hp bigwheel pushmower. The wire is broken and laying out in the yard. I know for a fact that I unplugged the charger. I pushed the mower around the wire and reached down to grab it as to throw it out of the way. It seems as though I didn't unplug it.

Now I'm standing there, Ive got the running lawnmower in my right hand and the 1.7 gigavolt fencewire in the other hand. Keep in mind the charger is about the size of a marine battery and has a picture of an upside down cow on fire on the cover. Time stood still. The first thing I notice is my balls trying to climb up the front side of my body. My ears curled downwards and I could feel the lawnmower ignition firing in the backside of my brain. Every time that fawking Briggs & Stratton rolled over, I could feel the spark in my head. I was literally at one with the engine. It seems as though the fence charger and the POS lawnmower were fighting over who would control my electrical impulses.

Science says you cannot crap, piss, and nut at the same time. I beg to differ. Not only did I do all three at once, but my bowels emptied 3 different times in less than half of a second. It was a Matrix kind of bowel movement... you know where time is creeping along and you're all leaned back and BAM BAM BAM you just shit your pants 3 times. It seemed like there were minutes in between but in reality it was so close together it was like exhaust pulses from a big block Chevy turning 8 grand.

At this point im about 30 minutes (maybe 2 seconds) into holding onto the fencewire. My hand is wrapped around the wire palm down so i cant let go. I grew up on a farm so I know all about electric fences... but Dad always had those POS chargers made by International or whoever that were like 9 volts and just kinda tickled. This I could not let go of. The 8 foot long ground rod is now accepting signals from me through the permadamp Ark-La-Tex river bottom soil. At this point I'm thinking im going to have to just man up and take it until the lawnmower runs out of gas. "Fuck!" I think as I remember I just filled the tank. Now the lawnmower is starting to run rough. It has settled into a loping run pattern as if it had some kind of big lawnmower race cam in it. Covered in shit, piss, jizz and with my balls on my chest I think "Oh God please die... pleeeeze die". But nooooo, it settles into the rough lumpy cam ilde nicely and remains there, like a big bore roller cam EFI motor waiting for the go command from its owner's right foot.

So here I am in the middle of July, 104 degrees, 80% humidity, standing in my own backyard begging God to kill me. No really. I actually asked to God to take me. Yes, I'm agnostic, but as we all know in times like these the agnostic/atheistic crowd will eventually resort to admitting there is a higher power, and then beg said higher power to do their bidding. God did not take me that day... he left me there covered in my own fluids to writhe in the misery my own stupidity had created.

I honestly don't know how I got loose from the wire... I woke up laying on the ground hours later. The lawnmower was beside me, out of gas. It was later on in the day and I was sunburned. There were two large dead grass spots where i had been standing, and then another long skinny dead spot were the wire had layed while I was on the ground still holding on to it. I assume I finally had a seizure and in the resulting thrashing had somehow let go of the wire. Upon waking from my electrically enduced sleep I realized a few things.

1- Three of my teeth seem to have melted.

2- I now have cramps in the bottoms of my feet and my right ass cheek (not the left, the right).

3- Shit, piss, and semen when all mixed together do not smell as bad as you would think.

4- My left eye will not open.

5- My right eye will not close.

6- The lawnmower runs like a sumnabitch now. Seriously. I think our little session cleared out some carbon fouling or something, because it was better than new after that.

7- My balls are still smaller than average yet they are 2ft. long

8- I can turn on the TV in the gameroom by farting while thinking of the number 4 (still dont understand this)

That day changed my life. I now have a newfound respect for things. I appreciate the little things more, and I now always check to make sure the fence is unplugged before I mow.

[Richard Norway]

OMG Luggie! What an electrifying way to wake up in the morning. I'm now charged for the day, laughing as I go. GREAT!!!

[Trab]

Lugnutz, I'm surprised you didn't finish off with "Oh, Hell! Who wants to be normal anyway!" and enter it in the CW challenge.

[Guest Fritz]

The obvious moral of the story is to be careful of where you mow when there is an electric fence close by. I would add to that be careful where you pee if there is an electric fence anywhere around as well. While I'm not going to go into great detail, the effects are rather unpleasant. The only redeeming part is that you run out of urine eventually. And no, you do not need to pee directly on the fence to suffer the effects. Some tall dew-covered grass close to the fence will be more than sufficient to apprise you of the fence being on even if you aim several feet from the actual fence.

[Tanuki Racoon]

Ren and Stimpy also say "Don't whizz on the electric fence...."

[Lugnutz]

Lugnutz, I'm surprised you didn't finish off with "Oh, Hell! Who wants to be normal anyway!" and enter it in the CW challenge.

Nah. It's not by my hand. Right click/copy then paste it here. And elsewhere.

[Cole Parker]

That's one of the best-written pieces I've seen here. Magnificent.

How much of that is true? I mean, are you seriously one-eyed now? Can you work your TV without your remote, just thinking the channel numbers you want? Does it turn regular TV in HDTV?

And, more technically, doesn't your lawn mower have a rubber handle guard? I've never seen one that didn't, unless it was an old timer that had had an insulating sleeve that time and the elements had eroded.

And, why, if you emit signals to your electrical equipment, are you able to use a computer?

It just didn't sound like fiction, however. Being a mechanic, and knowing about engines, is it souped-up fiction?

C

[Lugnutz]

My mind isn't warped enough to come up with something like that. Wibby will say different, but I just grab it from someplace and bring it here for your entertainment.

[Tanuki Racoon]

Wibby will say different

different

[The Pecman]

I agree with Cole -- helluva good piece, Lug.

My best friend from early childhood used to live in a sort-of citified farmhouse, and his family owned horses, which were enclosed in an electrified-fenced corral. Once in awhile, we'd dare each other to grab hold of the fence and see how long we could do it before screaming and letting go. I think that was only about 1 amp of 12 volts DC (much less than a car bettery), but it was definitely enough to make you yelp.

Also, during my days of doing lighting for a major TV station in the early 1970s, I was once standing on a 25' high metal lighting ladder when I plugged in a 2000-watt key light for an actor. Unfortunately, my index finger was on the metal part of the plug at the time, and the circuit was hot. Literally knocked me on my ass. By sheer luck, I didn't fall off the ladder, but I came close. An engineer walking by at the time looked up, laughed, and said, "got bit, didn't ya?"

People get killed all the time from this crap. Hope you're feeling better. Maybe you can take the experience and write it into a story.

[Lugnutz]

I'm going to have to start putting disclaimers up when I post. "I did not write this"

I find the stuff then spread the joy.

[JamesSavik]

Years ago when I first started to make real money, I discovered that I owed Uncle Sam $1100 on tax day.

My boss was being a raging bitch.

Three printers and the main router decided to go tits up all at once.

My order for laser printer toner cartridges came back, again, because it wasn't formatted properly.

I had 10 minutes to deal with my bank to get the money for Uncle Sam. It took 40 minutes. Bankers are like that.

About 3:30 in the afternoon I get the beginnings of a cold.

At four we have a thunderstorm that strikes one of our buildings rendering it deaf, dumb and blind.

To make matters worse, my truck started making that noise that costs $600 to fix now or $1400 to fix later.

When I finally get home after 10:00, I sit down in my chair and my cat Booger hops in my lap.

I say, "Booger old pal, I had one hellva day."

He sat listening to me complain with the kind of interest that cats show when humans are babbling about something that the human thinks is important.

I make the mistake of ending my monologue with, "Oh crap, what else could go wrong?"

Booger made a dreadful sound, "HU-RUFF" and hurled a monster hairball in my lap.

Now I know.

Ever since then I have made a point to never asked what else could go wrong. Trust me on this. You don't want to know.

[Tanuki Racoon]

Ever since then I have made a point to never asked what else could go wrong. Trust me on this. You don't want to know.

Amen