It went down like this. I was in a particularly intelligent place, fresh off the filming of "Hey, Rube". Dom had dropped off the final cut on his way to a Friday Night Wiffle in Waltham. I quite unexpectedly was available for a little wiffle and caught a ride with the star and editor of Hey, Rube.

Not long after the game started, the weather took a serious turn for the worse. Sheets of rain were throbbing from the dark sky. The wifflers played on. The crackle of thunder from nearby bolts of lightning started to pierce the ears. The wifflers played on.

And then in the midst of all this natural disaster, I stepped to the plate to face my old time nemesis, Claudio (Dominic). It gets a little hazy during this part but at some point everything went white. I was standing in the batter's box, in a puddle, with metal rivets on the bottom of my cleats when zappity zap.

NOTE: At this point in the story you are sure to ask yourself:
1. why were you playing wiffle in a thunderstorm?
2. why were you wearing cleats to play wiffle?
Neither question is easily answered.

At the instant it happened, I crouched down and felt an awful shock in my knee. I grew up on a farm and have been bitten by the electric fence more times than I would like to remember. This was different, it came from the inside out. Now mind you, I have a couple of screws in that knee from ACL surgery a few years back.

We took a break to have a cold one but resumed the game once the heavy stuff passed. I blame the whole episode on Caddyshack. For the past couple of days, all of my lower extremities have felt pretty crappy. Well to be honest, I have felt just plain yuck.

For your information, this type of lightning strike is called a ground strike or step voltage strike. It generally only affects the lower body and it is difficult the gauge the level of electricity one takes on. Obviously since I can still type, walk, drive, and perform around the world with a yo-yo, I took a very low level.

I have a personal list of ways to die that is constantly changing both in content and in sequence. Generally thought these three are in the top positions:
1. Mauled by bear (preferably grizzly, I don't think a black bear would qualify as very cool)
2. Shark Attack (while surfing really big waves, not boogie boarding, ever)
3. Lightning Strike (as it turns out most people don't die, just end up dumber and sorer)

Now having been through number three, I think I would like a combination with the top two. For instance, there I was playing wiffle ball at the beach when a grizzly bear ran on to the field and started to maul me. I was beating him off with the wiffle bat until that bolt of lightning struck me. I staggered into the water stunned by the lightning but still swinging the bat. It was at this point that a Great White ate me, spitting out the bat for generations to marvel at. Yeah that would be number one way to die, hands down.