Eclectic Echoes

All winter I’d been wanting to show Johann static electricity in the dark so he could see the purple-blue sparks. We tried the experiment with the glass rod and the faucet, but there was too much humidity and it didn’t work. One time so much static was generated when I took my fleece jacket off it looked like a sparkler went off inside my jacket, but I couldn’t recreate it for Johann.

Even though we showed him how a statically charged balloon will light up a compact fluorescent bulb when held up to it, he had yet to see a big enough charge that threw a spark on its own. He had played with the classic experiment of dragging his socked feet on the rug in order to shock both of us, but that was still something you couldn’t see. He knew it was there because you could feel it. I wanted him to see it too and I wasn’t sure he believed me that you could under the right conditions. This was beyond frustrating.

About a month ago I was doing one last load of laundry before bed. Eric and Johann were getting into their pjs in the bathroom where it’s warmer. I was in the bedroom folding the white polyester blanket. Since I’d run out of fabric softener, it was more staticky than usual. I heard a couple of good crackles as I started to pull it apart and realize this was my chance to show Johann.

I ran and got Eric and Johann, we turned out the lights, and then I pulled the folds of the blanket apart. It was a fairy fireworks display! The moment I was waiting for finally happened. Johann not only saw it, but got big round eyes and had a sense of wonder and awe on his face. “Whoa! That’s really cool, Mommy!”

We played with the blanket until it seemed like all the static was gone, but then by shaking the blanket, we were able to generate more static electricity. Eric got into it and at Johann’s urging, kept shaking it more and more to make more sparks. Eric brought the blanket high as he was shaking it and I noticed the ceiling light flickered.

Eric did it again for Johann to see. The same compact fluorescent light bulb lit up. You could see the light inside the coil was the same purple-blue light of the sparks. Eric continued to shake and lift the blanket to try to get more of the light bulbs in the ceiling light to turn on. At that point I could feel the hairs on my face standing on end and started getting an apprehensive feeling that we were generating too much of a charge. So I suggested we stop.

We let the charge die down, but Johann’s enthusiasm for our static experiment hadn’t. He didn’t want to stop. So Eric did one more run on everything. When the charge got to be as high as before, he stopped again. The whole room felt electrified. Then I noticed the air smelled so clean like a magnified post thunderstorm sky in the mountains. The last time I’d smelled that smell was years ago when we had used an ionizer in our livingroom that didn’t shut off when it was supposed to. Bedtime had passed over an hour before, but that didn’t matter. Johann’s skepticism had been replaced with scientific wonder. I don’t think any of us will look at the white blanket quite the same again.