Bath Tub Oblivion
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 12:12AM After last Friday’s events I’m going to send myself for some remedial disaster preparedness classes, because I’m certain my bathtub is not the best place to ride out a possible tornado.
A nice long bubble bath seemed like a good way to rejuvenate myself after suffering from a 24 hour stomach virus. I’m of the opinion that a long hot bath is the cure to many of life’s ills. I was so anxious to finish reading the latest Charlaine Harris novel, Dead In The Family, that I had to refresh the hot water twice so I could finish up the book. You know how it is. Sometimes you get into your book and time just flies.
This was one of those times. I was totally oblivious to the storm brewing outside. I barely let the parade of daughters coming into my sanctuary to borrow this or that bother me. I didn’t even scream, “GET OUT” as I have sometimes have been known to do.
I was definitely in my happy place after a day of being in the unhappy nauseated place. My bath tub is framed by a 6 x 4 foot window up in the second story. Outside the tall evergreens whose tops cover my window were dancing at a more frantic pace as the wind picked up. I remember thinking about how when we lived on Lake Michigan we used to have a great view of the storms rolling in over the water.
Bay Harbor, Lake Michigan
Maybe my years living through the ferocious winds and harsh weather on the lake desensitized me to perilous conditions. During one particularly nasty Northern Michigan storm my daughters window blew off the side of our house and flew across my neighbors yard.
Lake Michigan facing west
When the trees began absolutely beating on my window followed by marble sized hail being slung against the glass I began to take notice. I wondered if there had been any tornado watches issued. It’s hard to even know when to take TV storm warnings seriously. It seems like the media likes to hype up every sideways fart that blows our way into a weather crisis.
Then the lights began flickering and took their sweet time deciding if they would stay on or turn off completely. Since the darkness was interfering with my reading I reluctantly began my careful exit. That’s when the howling got really loud and the lights decided- OFF.
the bigger they are...the harder they fall
Holy crap! I don’t want to be in the middle of a twister naked. In the dark, trying to quickly dry off, find sweats and pull them over still wet skin proved harder than it should have been. It was like one of those dreams you have when you keep misdialing the police when someone is trying to shoot you. Out my bedroom window I think I saw Toto fly by.
Devistation in Dundee, MI
As I hurried down the stairs I realized I hadn’t heard a peep from the 3 other occupants of my house who were also home. I’m calling them occupants instead of beloved family members because a family member would have checked on their beloved mother and wife. No, instead they were following the odd unspoken policy of ignoring me on the rare occasions I’m sick.
“Helloo, where is everyone”? Well the man of the house was snuggled on the couch, in a jet lagged oblivion of his own. The other 2 were in a Sims 3 Ambitions induced trance that even the short lived power losses failed to crack. Their biggest worry during the dark howling storm was getting their new game operational again. (I wasn’t kidding when I said Lake Michigan storms had desensitized us).
Large trees down everywhere
All humor and sarcasm aside, there was nothing funny about the tornados that swept through Michigan and Ohio last weekend. 7 people lost their lives in Lake County Ohio and the Michigan town where my annual whiffle ball tournament took place the previous week took a direct hit.
And, I vow in the name of emergency preparedness I will not spend the next tornado in a bubble bath in front of 24 square feet of glass.
Sims 3, Tornados, emergency preparedness
Reader Comments (4)
Why not? Just add a martini to the recipe. If ya gotta go...
We're preparing now for hurricane season down here. I have glass brick in my tub surround. No hurricane is gonna blow through that.
Holy cow! Did the tornado hit your neighborhood or are those pictures from other parts of MI? Yikes.
We get tornado "watches" in Austin, but never has there been an actual tornado. At least, not to my knowledge. I checked that before I moved here.
We had a great lightning storm the other night. In which case, you would not want to be in the bathtub then, either.
http://www.heiferyung.com/2009/08/id-rather-be-lightning-rod-than.html