My children think I’m a far cry from a brick shy of a load because I think about catastophries, and make plans for dealing with them. Movies like Independence Day get me started, after all I do have the role of female protector in this family of scoffers. Well, anyhow, my son-in-law told me where there’s this big warehouse full of food last night and I told him when the big one happens to stop and get me on his way there, sooooo …

See, there was this old lady whose husband was never at home. He had an office where he told people what to do from morning to night. So when the planes flew over, she was out by the pool weeding roses all alone. She heard a whistling sound and looked around to see whether she had a secret admirer. No such luck.  She returned to weeding, and almost instantaneously there was an explosion down at the Quik Stop. Well, she thought it was probably the Quik Stop. She wasn’t too good on directions. The next thing she knew a huge burst of dirty wind blew her against the side of the house. Lucky for her, it also blew the floaty toy from the pool and she landed against it. So, no broke ribs, hip or so on. She threw her arm over her nose to keep out the debris in the wind, but it didn’t take long before the wind stopped. Strangely, the rest of the house was gone, except where she and the floaty toy were up against the wall. That made her mad, she had spent a lot of good times in that house. She turned, and there was her silhouette, in floaty toy and wall. She would have run for the twinkle lights, because she knew a money-making opportunity when she saw one, but they had blown away with the garage. It occurred to her that the neighbors might need help, so she looked around, but they were blown away. Get it, they were blown away? ha ha ha “Hello!?” No response. Maybe they were in Cincinnati.

Ok, so she’s all alone even more than she was all alone before. It made her really mad that her roses were blown away too, except that the weeds were gone also, and she’d been fighting those dang weeds for years. She had her cell phone in her pocket, the one with the fancy dial somebody by saying their name feature. She thought about calling her hubby, but he didn’t know where the warehouse full of food was, so she decided to call her son-in-law first. She got the machine. She hated that dang thing. “Hello, I’m not at home. Leave a message at the beep.” Well, for cryin’ out loud. This was the catastophe she’d been expecting, and the very first line of defense wasn’t working! So she tried her husband, the guy with a message as long as your arm. It was comforting to hear his voice, but he was either still in session, or …

She was on her own. So, first things first. Food and water and shelter. It occurred to her that she had let so many weeds grown in her garden that it was possible the dirty wind had blown them all off and she could find the vegetables underneath. She went out there, and sure enough the food problem was solved. She picked a whole shirt front full. She noticed one of the many stray cats in the neighborhood skulking along behind the old fence line. Darn things must be like cockroaches, but if she could figure a trap, they might taste like chicken.

Water. She wondered whether it was safe to drink pool water. Then she remembered that those same stray cats drank it all the time. So one more problem solved.

On to shelter. Every house on her street had blown to kingdom come, or Cincinnati. There wasn’t a board or brick or even torn up sheet rock in sight. Everything looked kind of gray, must be the lack of light in the sky. This was beginning to remind her of a movie. She sat down with a thump. What if all this stuff falling out of the sky was going to turn her into a zombie? So she took down the piece of wall and the pool toy, and made a lean-to by the pool. And just then, she heard a motor, and around the corner came her son-in-law in his pickup. He had found everybody in the family, even her hubby, and he hollered, “Get in! We’re going to the warehouse.” She climbed up the tailgate and everybody hauled her over.

Tune in next time I feel like it to find out how it all comes out.