Not Liking the Odds

Watching the late news last night I saw a story of a 21 year old NH woman who was struck by lightning. While standing in her garage, a bolt of lightning entered through her feet and exited through her nose ring. The young woman, unfazed by the event, was asked if she planned on resting for the evening. She responded, "Are you kidding? I just got electrocuted. I'm too charged up to sleep!"

It was reported the odds of being hit by lightning are 1 in 280,000. I'm not sure where the TV station got that number but it seemed frightfully low to me, so I looked it up. According to a National Geographic site, the chance of being hit by lightning during your lifetime is actually 1 in 5,000! If you suffer from astraphobia don't panic just yet as the odds improve to 1 in 500,000 for any particular Summer. And yet, you still can't respond to 'what are the chances?' with a 1 in 1,000,000 response. Who'd a thunk it?

So you don't think you'll ever get hit by lightning, but you do daydream about how to spend your $100,000,000 Powerball earnings every Friday night. The odds of winning the Powerball grand prize - 1 in a 1,000,000? Try 1 in 146,107,962. Who'd a thunk it?

I don't know what the hell lightning and the lottery have to do with each other, but I was fascinated by the odds. Besides, I had this cool picture of lightning I took at an airport last month just waiting to be blogged. By the way, tomorrow's winning numbers are 4,7,11,15,24 and 13. Clear skies are in the forecast.