It was a slow day at the office and we had just finished lunch when the news broke. A tornado had touched down somewhere south of Dallas. Now as usual, I failed to give mother nature enough credit and greatly underestimated the situation at hand. Kinda like the day that Dallas residents were warned not to leave their homes due to extremely high temperatures. Do you really think that stopped me from making a quick trip to In n Out Burger to pick up my #2 meal, during which time i sweated out every ounce of fluid my body had to offer? Of course not. And it was totally worth it. Then there was the time I was in LA during an earthquake which at first I mistook for a bout of Vertigo. Do you think I let a few cracks in the pavement and some swaying buildings ruin my sightseeing plans? Not this guy! Within 5 minutes I was underground and taking the next subway to Hollywood because this tourist had places to go and D-List celebrities to hunt down.
So everybody is starting to get serious about the whole situation by now I'm assuming people are making a big deal out of nothing. I mean come on. I've survived a hurricane in Florida when I was vacationing at Disney World and while the palm trees were swaying we just hung out indoors and watched "Lilo and Stitch" and "The Rookie" on repeat for 48 hours straight. No big deal right? (Did I mention no amount of money could persuade me to watch either of those movies ever again?) Anyways, before I have enough time time to make a "there's no place like home" joke, the cities alarms are sounding, my co-worker Marlee is frantically scavenging the office in search of a pillow to shield her from falling debris, Larita and Sherlene are making a beeline for the back door to have one last smoke, golf ball sized hail is falling from the heavens, and all 8 of us end up crammed into a tiny computer room watching the news as 18 wheelers are being hoisted hundreds of feet up into the air like my beloved Raggedy Ann and Andy Dolls.
By now I was fairly concerned. Especially once I took into consideration the fact that our office is located in strip mall that as of a week ago had become infested with termites. Therefore, there was no way in hell my office walls were gonna survive a hit from 150 mile an hour winds. At this point I did what every other person in my ruby slippers would have done. I called my roommate Robbie to tell him that if I died it was all his fault for conning me into moving to Dallas in the first place and that I cursed the day he was born! That felt good. After getting that off my chest, a flood of thoughts and questions came running through my mind...does my insurance cover tornado collision or is that a completely separate thing I should have looked into 24 hours ago....do I have time to take a quick poop because who knows when I'll get to leave this room again...if I seek shelter in the nearby Mediterranean Restaurant I wonder what my chances of getting free pita and hummus are...should I call Mom or has Grandma already checked the Dallas weather today and told her my chances of survival aren't lookin too good...what should my last Facebook status update be.....definitely needs to be something witty because i wanna leave this world on a high note of LOL's and "Like" buttons.
After about an hour of keeping our eyes glued to the events unfolding before our eyes on the iPad screen and after being asked by several "concerned"friends to upload some cool and vintage Instagram pics from the eye of the storm, it became evident that we were probably going to be ok...which also meant we had to get back to work and be productive. Wah wah. It was all rather anticlimactic but I was thankful in the long run for no harm being done to myself and those around me. Even though the hail did leave some nasty dents in my car, I am counting my blessings that the Matrix stayed in the same parking spot I had put it in earlier that day. You just never know what the day will bring.
No comments:
Post a Comment