The Non-Tornado.

I confess.

I don't like the smell outside after it rains because it smells like worms and I sincerely believe that everything you need to know in life you can learn from Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Last night as I was driving home I noted the weird hue of the clouds I was driving towards, as well as the electrical lightning dance going on inside them with something of a- 'huh, weird.' Didn't really think too much of it until I got a text from my friend that said, 'By the way, tornado warnings tonight.' (Keep in mind it's November.)

Oh that's ok. I got this.

I learned everything I need to know about tornado survival, and fatefully enough, I learned it all Sunday night, as if the tornado gods were sending me a study guide when I read through 'These Happy Golden Years,' by the aforementioned Laura Ingalls Wilder.

All you gotta do is go to the cellar when Pa tells you to go.

Don't start fretting, no tornado actually happened. Well if it did, I slept through it. Which I'm not ruling out as a possibility.

But it highlighted my ignorance.

Luckily, my friend Malisa was a great instructor. When I asked her, 'So... at what point do I know I need to be hiding?' she responded with, 'When you can hear it. If things are hitting the house, don't go outside. That's a really bad sign. So is growling. If you hear growling, you're out of luck.'

Ah, so simple.

When I looked around to decide where I would hide, I immediately ruled out the closet underneath the stairs. I'd run the risk of being buried alive if I opened the door, and that's not even taking into consideration how long it takes to shove everything back inside once you open it. Much too long. There's a certain skill set to flinging the junk in and immediately slamming it shut so it didn't spill back out.

'And you're going to want to hide in the closet underneath the stairs, since you don't have a basement.'

It was that point when I realized we were NOT going to have a tornado because I was not prepared to be so inconvenienced. I had to wake up early to work and I wasn't about to spend my hours dedicated to sleep curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor (it's really just half a bathroom- not even a tub to sleep in) with a 72 hour kit as a pillow.

It's not even that great of a 72 hour kit, to tell you truthfully. There's no sudoku in it yet. And I don't have a flashlight to fit the batteries that are in the kit for the flashlight that I don't yet have.

Annoyed, I finally made other arrangements when I said something like the following to Malisa,

'Hypothetically speaking, if a tornado were going to happen tonight and you were on your way into your basement to protect yourself because it had gotten that bad, do you think you'd remember something like, 'Hey, maybe I'll text Katie and let her know.''

To which she replied in the affirmative.

So I had it all worked out. If Malisa texted me that she was seeking shelter then so would I.(Assuming the text message woke me as I slept through the tornado). If I got desperate I'd play angry birds on my half-bathroom floor until it was safe.

See? Told you. All you gotta do is wait until Pa tells you to go into the cellar.