Back to the Future: Raising Today's Kids Like It's 1985

Strange events are the theme of Summer 2026. From wild conspiracies to unreal natural disasters, untimely deaths and proofs of life, we are halfway through the season, and every day seems to bring us a new surprise. It should not have shocked me, then, when lightning fried my house last week. Thankfully, everyone is safe and the house is still standing, but in the words of Doc Brown, "Since when can weathermen predict the weather, let alone the future?"

The forecast called for a moderate chance of light showers; anything heavier would stay inland. Our air was so thick, you practically had to chew it before breathing. Welcome to coastal North Carolina in July, and, as gross as it is, it still beats a hurricane. My kids and I were standing in the kitchen preparing to go to a local waterpark when we heard a rumble in the distance. Usually, we refer to that noise as "the sound of freedom" — artillery — as we're situated between military installations that host live-fire training exercises regularly.

"Mom, it's really dark outside," said my son. He was right; it was eerily dark. Just as I'd approached the window for a better look, a shock of white-blue light filled the sky. A bullwhip crack typical of either lightning or a cannon shot split the peace under my roof. Panes shook in the windows. The floor vibrated under our feet. Our lights flickered brighter before stuttering and returning to a glow.

One thing any parent of young kids will tell you is that when they are ready to walk out the door but your plans change, you still walk out the door and make it up as you go along. When we returned from the ice cream shop, questions began to percolate: Why are the lights coming on at different speeds? Why are the lights different colors? Where did the wifi go? Is it hot in here?

The lightning bolt had caused a power surge right over my roofline.

The LED can lights I installed two months ago? The guts were scrambled. Downstairs HVAC unit? Fried. Switches and plugs? Knocked out cold. Starlink? Down for the count.

I walked around the house three times, searching for scorch marks, but found none. A friend who works for the National Weather Service shed some light on the situation with a lightning map overlaid on the coordinates of my house: cloud-to-cloud directly overhead, and the bolt didn't just affect my house — my 67-year-old neighbor's house had been zapped, too.

There are five things you can expect when your electronics go bananas in the summer because of lightning:

Young children will not understand that the TV will not work — even though it turns on — because it requires the internet, which is down;
Your house will get very hot very fast;
Professionals you call for help will run through a phone book of possibilities before considering lightning a viable choice;
It will be very expensive to repair; and
You will be transported back to 1985.

Past readers will recall that I don't have a hard and fast rule for television consumption for my kids; they are fantastic self-regulators. We stream YouTube, Disney+, Hulu, and Prime (definitely not Netflix), and I have learned that I rely on the flat box more than my kids do because that's how I measure transitions ("at the end of this episode…" or "we can turn it on in 10 minutes…"). We're not living in Little House on the Prairie or anything, but this first-world problem has turned me into the "this is what it was like back when I was a kid" shrew that I swore I'd never become.

We have played Chutes & Ladders, Uno, Pictionary, Apples to Apples, and What Do You Meme. Once all of our jigsaw puzzles were complete, I hustled my neighbors to dust theirs off and swap with us. Our friends may not get their hamster in a sombrero puzzle back any time soon, since it has become my daughter's new favorite activity.

During the day, as the weather has permitted, we have taken hikes through shaded woods, lounged at the pool with a cooler of snacks, and wandered the aisles at the grocery store, practicing simple math and Spanish vocabulary. Some families have had the kids over to play while I waited for electricians and AC repair folks.

If you ever find yourself in my current situation, check your fuse box and do a hard reset of the mainline. After you're sure you have a problem, go talk to your neighbors and identify the radius of damage, and then call the power company to ask about brownouts (a temporary drop in voltage caused by the power company in an effort to conserve energy during peak hours). Once they confirm they aren't just messing with you, ask them to send out some linemen to investigate. Hang up and call the electrician; have them out as soon as possible. The HVAC people can't do what they need to do until the electricity is on and safe. If you have Starlink, Grok will send you a replacement kit for you to plug and play the parts until it works again, and then you'll send back the damaged and unnecessary bits.

While this hullabaloo has been inconvenient, it has been nice to connect in new ways with my kids. They have asked me to teach them how to play Go Fish, so we'll be doing that after dinner tonight. When was the last time you played Go Fish? That's too long. Grab a deck and deal seven cards; smear the rest of the cards face down on the table to make a "pond," and draw cards to see who goes first.

I thought I'd been prepared for just about anything: hurricanes, tornadoes, complete loss of power, even emergency evacuation, but I was oblivious to the possibility of time travel. From now on, every year that I assemble my hurricane kit, I'll also pack a lightning kit. Here's what I wish I had (and will have going forward):