Trish is... ELECTRO WOMAN!

When I first thought about writing this blog post, I didn't know there was actually an Electro Woman. But when I googled images to see if there were any cool ones I could add to my post, I found this.

The chick standing next to her, looking as though she whines incessantly, is Dyna Girl. Note how Electro Woman is closing her eyes, counting to ten, and trying not to pound Dyna Girl in the head and tell her to shut the fuck up. You can see the tension. And I've never even seen the TV show. You know that had tasers been around in 1976, Dyna Girl would be doing the Electric Shimmy every time she opened her mouth.

But I digress...

The reason I am Electro Woman is not because I look as good as Diedre Hall in a skintight costume (although that would be nice...) but because I zap the fuck out of almost everything I touch. I kill radios and TV sets. I've sucked the juice out of batteries (not intentionally - just happens). My phone constantly needs recharging. This is something that's happened all of my life. Well, not the phone thing... but you get it..

My mom used to work for a baby carriage company. Her job was electroplating the cool bits and bobs that went on the prams. She was constantly surrounded by an electrical field. It was so bad, that Rogers cable requested they put some sort of energy barrier around her because the electrical field was knocking out the cable within a six-block radius. This was back in 1968, when technical stuff wasn't so sophisti-ma-cated.

So they put a barrier around the room she was in and called it day. Only problem - my mom was still in the room. They didn't give her anything special to wear - no protective gear - not even one of those cool lead aprons. Oh. And she was pregnant.

So - for nine months (maybe eight and half - but mom worked through most of her pregnancy), I was exposed to electrical zappy thing type conditions. I'm a mutant. But not in any really cool way. I can't turn of a light without being zapped. I can't touch anything metal without being zapped. I can't even touch another human being without that intial zing. It's a little hurty. Usually moreso for the other person.

On the other hand, I have been known to disrupt signals (especially in old TV's and radios - the kind with tubes) and make things power down for no apparent reason. It's not much of a consolation - but it is a cool party trick. I'll take it.

Oh - and because the universe loves a good joke as much as the next guy - my son has also inherited these talents. Between us, we go through appliances like stupid.