Tornadoes, Texts, and Dying With Dignity

I don’t know if I am just now noticing how really bad our weather teams around here are at their jobs, or if they are just having a spell of bad luck, but it seems to me, they have been really, really off their game lately.

Weather is one of those things we have pretty much no control over, so the fact that we got bombarded this afternoon and evening by multiple tornadoes, hailstorms, and flash floods isn’t actually their fault. Still, I like a little lead time before I have to hide in a bathtub with my grown son, a pregnant dog, two grown cats, and six newborn kittens. That is just too much breathing in one tiny space.

Dj and I played with our smartphones, only partially focused on the tornado alarms blaring and the crashes of hail against the house. I wonder if every person who gets killed by a tornado feels like I always do… like there is no way I’m actually about to be killed by a tornado.

A by-product of hiding in a bathroom is too much time with nothing to do but wait. And have text conversations. Long, long text conversations. With people who are as twisted as you are.

I have a friend who has about the same level of irreverence about life as I do, and a willingness to let it all hang out. Lucky for me, he was bored during the storm too.

We messaged each other this evening, oblivious to the very real danger of what was going on around us.

I must say, it was a rather magnificent conversation that started with genuine, though rather uninspiring, texts of concern for the other’s safety and ended with the unanimous opinion that if a cow is involved in any way in a person’s death, there can be no dignity in that death.

In between, there was some mocking of city-boy survival skills, a family selfie taken despite a killer storm blowing in their faces, some discussion of the likelihood one could hide from a tornado in one of the many, many potholes dotting every highway, street, and sidewalk in this town, a firm decision on what should be written on my friend’s gravestone should he die in this storm, how worthless an address becomes once a tornado has relocated the the home, how convenient owning a grim reaper costume would really be, and given the choice, would we rather die in a tornado or by breathing in black mold for months, And all of it with tornadoes battering against the walls outside.

Because dying during a conversation about  being crushed by a falling cow are acceptable subjects to end our lives on.

Best.Tornado.Ever.

I’m glad he didn’t get killed by a cow.

~ Bird