Today was kind of a “sloggy” day. For some reason, I was in a terrible, no-good, rotten mood from the moment I got up this morning, and I felt like my head was in a tired fog all day.
After afternoon discussion, as Dad and I were headed home, I told myself, “Okay, Erin. I know you’re tired. I know you just want to go home and pass out on the couch. But you have to find some reserve energy for the rest of this evening because you have a lot of schoolwork to do.”
So I did just that. I drank some tea for a little pick-me-up, and after dinner I was beginning to feel that second wind. I was beginning to feel it so much, in fact, that as I pranced into the kitchen to get a glass of milk, I did a few little jumping jacks. I was feeling pretty darn pleased with myself. I was happy. I was energetic—I was reaching for the sky!
And that is when my reaching, jumping hands connected with the glass lighting fixture on the kitchen ceiling… and it exploded all over my head.
I just stood there for a few seconds, stunned, staring at the white shards of glass and at the frozen expressions of shock on the faces of my parents, who had whipped their heads around from their seats in the dining room when they heard the racket.
I can only imagine what that must have been like, to hear the sound of a million mirrors shattering and then to turn around and see their eighteen-year-old daughter, standing stock still in the middle of the kitchen amid piles of glass all over the floor and on the countertop and in the dirty dishes piled in the sink. If they had any thoughts at that moment, they were probably along the lines of, “I thought she had gotten over this stage…”
After their initial shock, Mom and Dad tried to say comforting things like, “We were thinking about installing track lighting anyway…” Now, after cleaning up the wreckage, we’re left with just a bare light bulb hanging in the middle of our kitchen ceiling.
Oh, and also the knowledge that I actually exploded a light by jumping up and thrusting my hands into it. Not everyone can say that, I suspect.
It seems that God has a way of poking you from time to time to let you know, “No, you really can be even more ridiculous.”
Point taken. 
November 4th, 2006 at 1:19 am
Nice writing. Good tale.
November 4th, 2006 at 3:02 am
VERY funny story
hahaha
November 4th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Actually, almost exactly this same thing happened to me once, except it involved jumping up in the air after winning a video game. I got a bunch of little cuts all over my hand, too, from the glass.
November 4th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
heh - once during some praise and worship / ministry time with a group of people, I was on a chair with low ceilings. I raised my hands high, fast, and hard… only to be met with the twin florescent lights directly above me. Yeah, shards of glass and whatever kind of dusty chemical inside of those things all around.
More recently, I broke a light fixture at Onyx. You know the front stairs up to the living floors? Well, there’s this great place to do pullups from the guys’ landing reaching up to the railing of the girls’. I was off to the wall side which I don’t normally do and when I let go and hopped down my elbows came down right on the edge of this, fortunately, plastic light fixture. The unfortunate bit, aside from me being one of the older, more mature (and managers) members of the house, is that apparently these specific fixtures don’t really exist anymore. So we have one more bare light on our stair well.
oops.