Kryptonite

I am usually a super-stong, do-it-yourselfer, who does not cower in the corner or ever ask for help. But there are two things that turn my spine into jello. Every. Single. Time. They are cockroaches and tornados. (Actually, even just the threat of either one). The cockroach business we'll save for another therapy session. But, tonight, with a tornado warning flashing at me in another tab, we'll address this particular issue of mine.

As a young child, I lived in a small town in northwest Texas, that hosted a fair amount of tornados over the years. Many homes had basements or cellars, but ours did not. So, we would gather at the homes of friends and neighbors whenever The Threat was issued, day or night. With all the excitement in the air and the crowd of familiar faces, I might have thought these gatherings were parties, but for the adults' grim faces and grave examining of the dark sky. More than once, I caught a glimpse myself of the ominous clouds, producing their funnels in the distance. Though it was terrifying, it was also a bit exhilarating. I instinctively respected these storms and knew they contained a power that could not possibly come from man.

In the Spring of 1991, at the end of one of my eighth-grade school days, as I waited for my mom to finish the after-school responsibilities that go along with any teaching job, I gained a more intimate fear and respect for tornados. As we watched the sky darken through the computer lab windows, where my mom was trying to shut down all the machines in the face of the stormy weather, we heard the briefest sound of one of the town's tornado alarms before the power went out completely, and we realized we needed to head for cover. Our initial reaction was to strike the "tornado drill position" in the hallway--a drill we had practiced many times during our school years, always accompanied with giggles and excitement at escaping class for a few minutes. This time, I felt no such giddiness, though I did have the impression that everything was moving in slow motion. We hadn't been in the hall long, when the janitor came along and remembered he had the key to the school basement, where old school play costumes and props were kept and where rats were known to roam freely. As we, and the handful of other people left at the school, made our way down the hall--again in slow motion--I turned my head to the right just as we passed the large windows at the front of the school, and I saw It. The swirling abyss of blackness was just outside the door, traveling casually down the street that ran in front of the school.

I don't know how long we endured the hell of the basement and the not knowing, but when we finally emerged, at the firefighters' urging, it was like  stepping out into a very unpleasant dream. Nothing seemed based in reality, and yet, everything seemed so incredibly real. The football stadium and field house just a parking lot away from us, were completely gone. And there were stories that "things were bad" on the end of town where our house was situated. I'm not at all sure how my mother managed to control the shaking of her hands or the beating of her heart (which as a child, I never noticed, but as an adult with kids of my own, know for certain must have been the case) to coax our car to move in the general direction of our home. The signs of the monster's passing were evident everywhere--mangled trees, crumbled buildings, downed power lines. The road to our house was closed, but we were finally able to snake around on back roads to get there. The main house was still standing, but the playhouse my grandaddy built with his own hands--the one I had lamentably become too cool to play in in recent years--was upended across the neighbor's fence, and the garage sale items my mom had been storing inside were strewn across what seemed like every inch of the neighborhood. And all the buttons had simply been plucked off all the clothes, as if the tornado had some great sewing project to tackle and couldn't be bothered to visit the fabric store for supplies. A neighbor's garage had collapsed. Houses and businesses all over town were destroyed. The power was out for days. And every night for a week, we holed up in another neighbor's basement, watching the clouds taunt us over and over by dipping down little funnels that never quite reached the ground. It remains, to this day, one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. Even now, just the mention of a tornado watch is enough to send shivers down my spine.

Several years later, I had another close encounter with one of these beasts. Just home from college for the summer, at the end of my Sophomore year, I waited out another terrifying storm, alone in my parents' bathtub. That one traveled unabashedly up I-35, taking out whole towns in its wake. Just a mile from where I was hunkered down, the lake's marina was obliterated.

So, tornados are my Kryptonite. And, I'll admit, I can be downright silly about it. My first order of business in every home I've ever lived in has been to establish a tornado plan. I have been known to decree a home unfit for purchase if I can't come up with a "safe room." That's why my sweet husband drew a true safe room into the floor plan of our house, and then saw it through to completion. He did a great deal of research and came up with something that should withstand just about anything. So, if you're looking for the kids and me tomorrow and can't find us, come knock on the pantry door. We may be in there warding off the effects of the Kryptonite.