If a cow ever got the chance...

When I was little, my mom would never let me talk on the telephone during a thunderstorm. (She wouldn't let us bathe or shower until it was over, either.) I thought it was because all the excess electricity in the air would somehow come through the phone line/bathtub porcelain and kill us.

The problem is that now I can't figure out if she was right or not. I mean, obviously I'm being sarcastic about her motives--lightning isn't going to come up through the tub drain, but there probably is some scientific reasoning behind all of this. (The telephone pole in front of their house actually was hit by lightning when I was about 15--it knocked phone service out for about a week.)

Then again, my parents are big-time Luddites--we were also forbidden to have cell or cordless phones (brain cancer) or Walkmans of any type at any volume (headphones = deafness). In a half-assed attempt at rebellion, I went out and bought a cassette-tape Walkman, which I hid in my desk drawer. The half-assed part is that the minute I turned it on, I became convinced that it was destroying my hearing forever just like they'd said it would, so I listened to maybe one-half of one side of one tape on it. Ever. I was a real badass. And now as an adult, these are some of the things I do not own:

• Cell phone
• Cordless phone
• Walkman
• Okay, I do own a microwave, but I am convinced that it destroys the healthful energy in my food
• Perfume (the maternal parent was allergic to it and said it smelled terrible)
• Anything with added fragrance, including detergent and deodorants
• Food that has not been triple-washed or organically grown
• New clothing that hasn't been washed at least once (factory chemicals)

I can't figure out if my parents saved me from half the toxins in the modern world, or warped my perceptions beyond all reason. Possibly both.

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