Sudden Realization

N and I were driving home from Hebrew school when the lightning started. I'd told him we needed to stop at the supermarket on our way home, and he began to worry about being hit by lightning while we were in the store. (If you have a kid on the spectrum, you know that by "began to worry" what I really mean is "began to perseverate on and spiral into a full-on freakout over...")

I began to explain to him why we didn't need to worry about the store being hit by lightning, which only shifted the worryperseveration/freakout onto the possibility of being hit by lightning in the parking lot. I pointed out the tall light poles, and told him to just not hold onto one, and he'd be fine. I also began to tell him about how vanishingly rare it is for lightning to strike down right where a specific person is, and how he really didn't need to worry about it at all.

"Really," I said, "the only time you need to worry about lightning is when you're in a wide-open field with no trees, or on top of a mountain. And the WORST THING would be to be on a wide-open field on top of a mountain!"

At which point I stopped dead in my tracks, pulled out my phone, and texted Baroy.

ME: Ummmm... Top of mountain, open field, soccer practice, my daughter... Really? Still there?

BAROY: Yup. But under cover, talking.

ME: Oooookay. I guess.

Frickin' soccer. (According to Baroy, they'll be home--soaking wet, freezing cold, but apparently unfried--any minute now. But still.)