Today in honor of my friend “Brina’s” Birthday…HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRINA!!! :) I would like to share a story with ya’ll about our college days and living together with a tornado thrown in just for fun! :)
So I come from a small town that has a tornado at least once a year, though it is usually more then once. Brina does not. She comes from a place where the weather is awesome (though sometimes colder and more wintery) and butterflies and rainbows always appear. My small town has tornados, ice storms, droughts, torrential rain for a few days, and the butterflies usually don’t make it to that stage in their life because they end up being squished to death by cars on the country roads. (there needs to be stoplights for those little buggers or something…dead caterpillar guts everywhere, it’s just nasty!) Anyway you get the drift. Once in a great while in Brina’s city there would be a tornado watch…but nothing usually came from it. (and for those of you who are from my small town...I'm not dissing the town...I love my small town...but we just have REALLY wierd weather...and a lot of nasty catapiller guts on our roads in the spring time.)
So back to college days:
Brina and I were roommates in college, the college near my hometown. It was great! She brought me away from my books once in awhile to have some good wholesome fun sitting out in the sun, going for walks, and letting me and my dance partner show off our newest moves. Everything was going wonderfully until the summer we stayed on campus.
We were both taking a class together and had just walked back from the main campus to our apartment on campus. The weather had turned really bad, really quickly. I could feel it in my bones…I had a headache from the storm coming in, but my bones felt weighed down…and that could only mean one thing…a tornado was on its way.
We made it to the apartment before the rain began, and then we watched the news on our tv. This huge red thing was headed straight for us. This couldn’t be good. Next thing we know we are under a tornado watch. Brina starts to tell me she doesn’t like this and would rather be back in her city then this place. I couldn’t have agreed more with her at that point. Just a few minutes later and BAM the sirens go off…tornado watch turned into a tornado warning!
The campus police started making the rounds telling us we needed to go back to main campus, in the theater area in the basement, to stay safe. Brina starts to head out the door along with our other roommates. I stop them all and tell them to go and get socks, tennis shoes, and a bottle of water NOW! They are start to ask questions and I tell them to just do as I say. They quickly run around and grab everything, and so do I.
On the way to the basement I answer their questions. “If you are ever in a tornado situation you must have socks, tennis shoes, and a bottle of water with you at all times…if the building collapses on you, you don’t want shards of glass to cut you in your flip flops, or to be standing in rain water if it starts to rain and it gets in from the roof that collapses. And water…if you are stuck down there for days, or even hours for that matter, you are going to want water, and fresh water at that.” At this point, they were probably more freaked out then calm (and calm is what I was trying to go for…but I’m a worrier and when I worry this is what comes out of my mouth…really out there thoughts with some scientific backing to some degree)
So we make it to the basement, where of course I had my camera, and we took pictures of us during the tornado warning at college. I thought this was pretty cool…usually I am in my homes basement and the power goes out and I am stuck in the dark with a scared dog. So being stuck, in a place with generators, and students seemed awesome to me, compared to my usual. After the all clear we went back to our apartment and could talk of nothing else for about a century. Really that was all anyone on campus could talk about.
After that experience and after college, when I go and visit Brina or she comes and visits me (we live 5 + hours away from each other) bad weather has always seemed to follow us…I think it is to bring us closer together like that tornado did.
Anyway I wish Brina one of the best birthdays ever (even though I can’t be there to share in this wonderful day, I am sending great wishes her way).
Moral of this story: Always bring water, socks, and tennis shoes with you to your shelter in case of a tornado or you’re going to die a horrible death being cut by glass and from dehydration and a collapsed roof.
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