How not to die 101

 Raging storm here tonight ... the crashing of branches on the roof as fronts move through and the chill of a nasty sou-westerly.

It's been just over a year since (and you know the rest of the sentence wherever you sit on the globe). Right before our state government shut down regional borders and restricted travel, a few randoms turned up at the inlet where I live. Their thinking was that since this is one of the more remote places in the state, free of people and other anxieties, that it was a good destination to ride out what we all thought would be a month or so of this pandemic. Heh.

Anyway, a man turned up here in his camper van. He's a regular Bibbulmum track walker who normally lives in the city. We sat on the verandah one day and chatted. We were both a bit frazzled. He was contemplating returning to the city and I'd been consigned to teaching via zoom for the rest of semester. He started telling me a bit about his life. His brother had died in what was "a bit of an odd manner".

*Sarah's ears prick up*

Apparently this man's brother was about to go on a fishing trip and needed some worms for bait. The previous night, he'd had a yarn with someone at the pub about how to catch worms. So what you do right, is cut the female end off an extension cord and push it into the earth, then plug the male end into a power socket and turn it on. This punter told old mate's brother that the voltage through the soil would force the subterranean worms to the surface and that he could just go around and pick them up.

Perfect! So simple! So, he followed the punter's instructions to the letter. Unfortunately, when he went out in the morning to collect the worms, he was bare footed and had left the power on.