Friday, June 8, 2007

You know the buzz in the air right before a big snowstorm? And the letdown of blue skies? Yeah, it was like that.

Yesterday, I was pretty sure we were all going to die. That the day had come; 'fess up to your sins because we're getting to the end, no more, etc. The "grandaddy of all supercells" was allegedly on its way to Oshkosh, destroying everything in its path.

Dave even put our cheap little grill in the garage, because someone said "80 mph winds." We decided not to go to Waterfest because dying at a has-been band's show wasn't how I wanted to go out -- I mean, I'd at least die at a concert I LIKED.

And Dave? He had other plans to save the evening.

"OK, I've got everything we need -- I've got seven DVDs, food --" he said on his cell phone from the car as he was driving back home.

"Dave, someone said in the forums that five years ago when it was like this, they didn't have power for three days."

Pause. I heard the radio in his car and his almost-silent "uh" sound.

"Well, I also got a bottle of wine," he said.

"Well then! We're saved!"

... At work everyone ran around and made nervous jokes about being blown away and talking about the worst storms they've ever seen. I and my anxiety attack sat quietly and waited for imminent death, picturing myself, Dave and Mr. Big huddled in our basement crawling with bugs, huddled together under floorbeams that surely wouldn't hold up to 50 people standing in one room above us, let alone hurricane-force winds.

But then I got home, and our Steve Carell-lookalike meteorologist was saying "threats to personal property (long pause) and lives! (feign excitement) were at stake" in Menominee County, Mich. My death was nowhere near now.

So Dave and I sat on the couch with his homemade pasta dish in the oven, enjoying his day off and my Friday, and marveled at how everything the Green Bay weatherman said sounded like we were watching "Anchorman."

"A big hook, that super-cell, is heading right toward Green Bay! And we have a -- what? -- (hand to earbud) -- OK (nodding), OK, yes, the severe thunderstorm warning for (some county I forget) has expired? Yes? OK, the graphics are a little behind ... OK, there we go. And this supercell, it ..."

Hilarious. More so because of the wine and the blue skies outside.

1 comment:

Farrah said...

Down here in Milwaukee, I lost power just before midnight because of the storms and it was still off when I left for work in the morning. I know I wasn't the only one who lost power that night, but I had also lost power not once, but twice, at work earlier that day, for about an hour each time, because of the wind. I was not amused.