When it rains

I don't like tornados. I also don't like having a peaceful night at home being interrupted by tornado sirens in the middle of the night and not being able to clarify exactly why they're going off - is there one anywhere close to me, or are they trying to get me to listen to the weather report? Hence why I'm writing this while sitting in my closet. I mean, I don't really have anywhere else that's any safer.

Times like these I really miss one thing about Plainview, TX, and that would be basements. Both our house and my dad's office had gloriously large basements; the one at home was filled with a sleeper couch, ping-pong table, and many toys, and the office one was stocked with supplies bought in bulk from Sam's Club. Either way, when the skies looked nasty, you just grabbed a pillow, blanket, your favorite stuffed animal, a book, flashlight, your favorite pair of socks, a package of doritos, some sodas, the portable radio, Monopoly... well, the essentials, you know?

Tornados freaked me out as a little girl. And still do, admittedly. They come out of freaking nowhere, do whatever the hell they feel like, and can either skip around merrily in their destruction or just plow through. My nearest encounter with a tornado happened in Plainview, when I was about...7? One started forming over our house, ripped off some shingles, but never touched down. And there was that one that rampaged through downtown Fort Worth while I was at TCOM. Since then, I think the nearest I've been was Thanksgiving 2007 while en route to Ville Platte, LA. In that case, I was driving through the absolute worst weather I've ever been through alone on the road for, but it's hard to say whether I was actually anywhere near a tornado that time or not. It was the middle of the night, after all, but the feeling that at any moment a flash of lightning was going to illuminate a funnel of destruction coming at me and wiping me off the face of the planet was, shall we say, unnerving. I seem to recall a couple of panicked phone calls made while on the road that night.

Now back in my living room. If I ever own a house, I want a basement. It's a security blanket that I want back. Even in Wichita Falls, our house didn't have one, but the Fords (the nicest neighbors you could ever want) had a basement that was accessible to all the neighborhood in the event of foul weather. So, yeah. Sign me up for that.