Chirup, chirup, chirup. My cellphone alerted me that I had a text message. I opened my texts and saw that my daughter, who is in Florida, had texted me asking, "Have you gone after milk and bread?"
This is her standard message to warn me that monstrous weather is heading my way.
I texted her back, "No, why would I go out for milk and bread?"
Her next text, "MUH-THER! Awful storms and tornadoes are headed your way. Haven’t you been looking at the news?"
My reply to her was, "No, I have been busy napping today."
She then forwarded weather maps and warnings and instructed me on how to survive this monstrous upcoming weather. I am beginning to see a role reversal here.
So, I turned on the weather channel and saw that we were probably in the path of some very nasty weather. What to do?
First, I went out for the required milk and bread, etc. Then I found Mr. Wanderlust cleaning out some stuff in the basement and showed him the glaring red graphs and charts that our daughter had sent. "Hmmm," he said as he scratched his head. He does this when there is some serious thinking to do.
Being a Boy Scout of the highest rank, he has their motto, "Be Prepared," ingrained forever in his brain. So, we began moving necessities for the night to the basement. He has a carpeted exercise room in the basement which was selected to be our abode for the night. He prepared two bedrolls with pillows and extra blankets for our comfort. I carried down water, a flashlight and Kleenex.
Next, we had to get the dogs situated. Lulu Bichon set up a fuss when I took her favorite bed and blanket down to the basement. She railed even louder when I took her favorite squirrel and water bowl to the basement. Now to put the pee-pads down. Lulu is not afraid of going down the stairs to the basement, so she took off to stand guard over her possessions.
Mia Maltese is another story. She will go down the four front porch steps but not go near those long steep steps going to the basement. I picked her up to take her down the stairs while she hid her face in the bend of my arm. I walked slowly so as not to frighten her any more than necessary. She became so stiff that I began to wonder if rigor mortis was setting in. She was so happy when we finally “landed” at our digs for the night. She ran around sniffing everything then repeating her inspection.
I closed the door to the room. Now we were ready for our fun camping adventure … not.
The dogs took forever to get settled. Mia pulled out several Kleenex and tore them to smithereens to vent her frustration. Lulu wouldn’t get into her bed and couldn’t decide whether to sleep on my or Mr. W.’s bedroll. So, she went back and forth several times. Mia always sleeps with me, so she finally curled up against me and went to sleep. Lulu decided to do the same. They had me trapped and I dared not move in case they started rambling again. All was good.
I was almost asleep when it dawned on me that I had turned on the burglar alarm upstairs. I hated to upset the dogs by getting up to go upstairs to turn off the alarm. It would mean getting them settled all over again. But if Mr. Wanderlust or I walked down the basement hall to the bathroom, the motion detectors would be set off and the burglar alarm would call the police and the fire department. This is no wimpy burglar alarm as it shouts, FIRE, FIRE, LEAVE THE PREMISES NOW! All I needed was for sirens to come screeching up to the house then try to explain as the neighbors appeared to see what in the world was going on.
When you are in your 80s, there is no Jack-in-the-box type of getting off the floor. It is more like pulling yourself up from sinking quicksand while on your hands and knees. I carefully crawled over to the stationary bike and struggled to attain a standing position while every joint in my body screamed at me.
We finally made it through the night with nothing that, “sounded like a freight train.” All was well as I remarked to no one in particular, “We could have stayed upstairs and gotten a better night’s sleep.”
Mr. Wanderlust reminded me that “being prepared” is kind of like purchasing insurance. You purchase fire insurance on your house and hope that you will never have to use it.
