Tornado Alley

Because I know some people will worry when they see this post title, particularly those who are just as naive about West Texas as I was when I moved here I'll just say we're fine.

Just fine.

Like, almost boringly fine, and I'm ok with that. We have droughts. Serious droughts. That's pretty much it. No earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, cyclones or tornadoes. Usually.

But, let's roll back time for a minute, to three weeks ago or so. Before those nasty, devastating tornadoes ripped through Dallas. To a night of a terrible storm. One of our famous Texas thunderstorms. The rolling thunder, pounding rain, bright lightening, hammering hail...and of course, wakefulness for the adult humans of the household. After spending much of the night enjoying the light and mind-shaking thunder claps Shane and I were finally heading back to bed when I made a serious error. I uttered the words, "I can't believe the kids are always able to sleep through storms like this...".

Literally 30 seconds later the kids woke up.

One by one.

Of course, since I was the one that jinxed the near ability to go back to sleep I helped each of them back to bed with a smile on my face, I mean how can you not have a sense of humor when you willfully laugh in the face of irony?

Task accomplished, I settled back into bed for what I was hoping would be a restful few hours before the mind numbing blast of the alarm clock roused us for a new day, when a different alarm sounded. The security alarm.

Convincing myself and Shane that the power must have flickered because of the storm outside, and thus the alarm must just be resetting itself, I tried once again to fall asleep. A minute later the alarm sounded again. Thinking I must have somehow laughed in the face of the alarm gods too, I dragged myself out of bed, again, and trudged downstairs to see what was wrong with the alarm system.  Facing the alarm panel I pushed the button I most hoped would shut up the beeping. "Security Alert" sounded from the box.

Ok, now imagine the situation. I'm half asleep, half dressed, brain not functioning, standing in my entryway in the dark, facing six curtain-less windows wishing I'd sent 'the Man' to do this job. So I pushed the button again.

"Tornado warning".

What the crap? My alarm system is apparently attached to the weather service?!?! Thanks Vivint, that totally would have been good to know before I nearly wet myself thinking I was going to have a run-in with some creepy character in the shadows of my house. (For the sake of full disclosure, the weather alarm was not the same as a breach alarm, but whose brain is thinking that in the middle of the night?)

So, I trudged back up the stairs, down the hall and settled back into bed next to Shane. I tried to not bust up laughing while explaining to him my "near death" experience downstairs and you could actually hear the gears start moving in his head. ...Tornado warning...do I get the kids back out of bed?...how likely is the tornado actually going to touch down?...and if it does, what is the likelihood it'll land on my street?...if the tornado does land on my street, and it hits the house, do we really need to be sitting down in the hallway downstairs...would the insurance actually replace my house...man, if I could be so lucky...I'm so tired...


To which he responded, "good night" and rolled over and we both went back to sleep. Finally.

That's how we deal with tornadoes in Midland, Texas in the middle of a sleepless night.