Tornados Suck Ass.

Yeah. Yeah. It would be lovely if the house lifted by the twister remained INTACT.

I love my father. I really do. He is without a doubt the best father in the known universe for many reasons, not the least of which is that he still rocks at 80 years old. But I have to say that Daddy did a number on me in my childhood. The truth is He. Fucked. Me. Up. He scared the bejeezus out of me and caused me a life-long phobia because he recounted a twisted tale of tornado: The famous F4 tornado of April 30, 1953, which slammed into Warner Robins, Georgia, my home town, just about quitting time for the workers at Robins Air Force Base.

Daddy has always been fond of telling stories that involved his near death, I assume in an effort to Fuck. Me. Up. He often spun a scary yarn about how that fateful April day, he was supposed to pick up a work buddy at the Base’s front gate as usual; but this day, his co-worker went home ill, so Daddy was already way down Watson Boulevard by the time the sky turned a sickly greenish-gray. The front gate of the Base took a direct hit, so  thank God for stomach viruses or whatever sacked that guy Dad was supposed to pick up.

As they traveled down Watson, one of the fellows with whom he carpooled hollered out, “Twister!” and the three of them got out and stood by the car to watch the dervish pop pecan trees out of the ground like dandelions. Someone said, “It’s standing still,” to which some other informed voice replied, “That means it’s coming straight at us.” And they hauled ass out of the way. Good thing, too, or Daddy could have died, which would have prevented my birth ten years later. You just never know how many random choices could have stopped you from starting. But I digress. Back to tornados.

Daddy likes to call tornados “tornations,” which does not make them one iota more delightful to me. Every freaking time a little wind stirred up in my childhood, I bolted to the nearest southwest window to see if a funnel cloud might be heading my way. At night, when the darkness shrouded any clear vision, I simply could not sleep during a storm. I kept imagining the freight train sound and flying cars and appliances and livestock and houses. That damned Wizard of Oz crap sure as hell didn’t help, and I never, ever should have watched that movie at the impressionable age of fucking EVER.

And then my brother and his family barely survived a twister in Florida right after his little girl was born. In fact, my niece had just arrived home from a serious surgery just days after her birth when my brother sat in his music studio talking to our dad on the phone. (The studio is a separate house behind the main house.) So to make a long story short—too LATE!—my brother says to my father, “Hey, Dad, it’s lightning something awful, so I better head on over to the main house,” or something close to that. Well. As he stepped out the door, he looked behind the studio just in time to see a flash of lighting afford a terrifying view of a big, ol’, son-of-bitching twister bearing down on him and his loved ones. He and his wife managed to shelter the baby and drag a mattress over their heads in the hallway seconds before mayhem. What’s killer is that the house directly across the street was simply not there any longer. Only its foundation remained. But my brother’s house had nary a scratch. Only his backyard garden shed ended up in the front yard. Sweet.

It’s not hard to understand why I hate stupid tornations, now, is it? Recently one destroyed a town nearby, and the horror stories of families killed while lying prone, reciting Bible verses in their hallways just adds all kinds of nasty fuel to my crazy distaste for anything funnelear. And now I live in a tornado alley. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve gathered what’s dear to me (computer, purse, dog, husband, phone) and huddled in the master bathroom, listening with my stellar sense of hearing for any sign of freight train. Tonight we were on the freaking bathroom floor for 45 minutes. It gets old, sure. And if the house get sucked up by a spinning column of evil wind, I’m going with it, I know. Lordy. It’s this time of year that keeps me deeply invested in the manufacturers of Pepto Bismol. Dammit. There are just some things one should not share with one’s offspring. Cold sores. The flu. Details about parental sex. And stories of killer tornados. So. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Dad.