The Outlet and The Paper Clip

Photo by Neenu Vimalkumar on Unsplash

My first grade school year was coming to a close. For a solid week we learned about safety during thunderstorms and around electricity. We received fancy colored handouts, not the normal, mimeographed pages with blurry purple writing. I had grown to like the distinct, inky smell when the damp pages came straight from the printer. That machine fascinated me, but we weren’t allowed near it.

Mrs. Campbell, my first grade teacher, called our attention to the picture of a person standing under a tree and another one beside it with someone inside a house. “Which one of these should you do during a storm?” she asked. We raised our hands high above our heads. “Brian, which one should you do?”