Ever eat so much meat that you’re just, like, “GUH, that’s a little gross”? I know that kinda sounds like heresy, but man. I need to get thee to the farm stand stat.
So yeah, the tornado. First off, a big sloppy mashfest with tongue to the peeps who checked to make sure I wasn’t dead—I sure wished I were at times, what with the no power and the out-of-control mother and looking like I smelled for the better part of a week (well, Ok, I didn’t REALLY wish for death, but shit’s hard when all you can do is take a washrag to your bits without freezing them off), but you know, that which does not kill us makes us stronger, except for groin injuries, etc. Since I’ve told the story to, like, a million people, I’ll keep it short: I was sitting here wrapping up my story for the night when Mother calls: “The siren’s going off! What should I do!??” I, not hearing the siren, told her I didn’t hear it and that I would call her back in five minutes when I finished my story. Soon as I hung up, what do you know, I hear the faint roar of the siren across town. Huh, I thought, so I called the desk and said, “Hey, my ma just called and said the siren was going off. Is something coming?” Night Desk Chief and buddy JG said, “Well, let’s take a look ... tornado warning for (town four miles away) ... (next town over) ... (MY TOWNOMFG) ... yeah, something’s coming.” “Oh, wow,” I said. “Well, I just sent so I guess I shou—vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvt!”
(That was ‘hood’s power going out.)
True to form, the little guy headed for the hills, so I knew there was no wrangling him, but I couldn’t find Rube, so I just left the back door open because any time the door’s open, he thinks it’s a big party and goes running for the hallway. I made my way down the back stairs to the basement, which was pitch black, and thought “Hell NAW am I going down there alone without a light apparatus,” so I sat on the steps and watched what I could from the backdoor window. As you can imagine, it was quite a storm—constant, violent lightning and the wind whipping the trees all around for a good 10, 15 minutes until all of a sudden, the wind. just. stopped. Well, I thought to myself, that’s got to be the tornado, except I didn’t hear the giant locomotive-like roar you’re supposed to hear with twisters, so I stood there trying to see if the big cat made it downstairs and waiting to get wiped off the face of the earth. About a minute later, my downstairs neighbor called out to see if I was around, and I headed up to her crib because she had beer and lit candles.
After the first beer, I call Mother back, and her machine didn’t pick up so I knew her power was down and that I’d better get over there to make sure she hadn’t gotten wiped off the face of the planet (also: to assess her mental state to see what kind week I was in for). It had stopped pouring, so it was safe in that respect even though there were no streetlights for miles. First thing I noticed as I zipped through the shortcut I usually take, aside from the water puddled in the potholes that swallow small children, was an overturned semi cab and roofing shingles scattered about. Then I looked over to my left, saw a lit-up police car in front of the subdivision nestled behind the crib. Got to Mother’s—her power was out and she was all twitchy, of course, but no worse for the wear—then went back out to the subdivision. (You knew that was coming.) Got out of the car and walked through the blockade to be greeted with the first house that had its front sheared off. Started reporting straightaway, the end.
Yeah, that wasn’t really a short story, was it? Alas, they never are where I’m concerned. And I ain’t even STARTED on the nightmare that fixing my shower became. THAT was even worse than not having power (but not as bad as not having cable).
