Assistant (to the) editor

By Melissa Tucker

Under the radar

Posted April 9, 2008

So, last week's storm was the first time I heard the tornado sirens go off -- outside of the routine testings at noon on Wednesdays.

The husband and I were watching a movie. (deleted scenes and outtakes from Serenity, if you must know...) We heard the sirens going off and he told me to get in the hallway. I told him to grab the fouton mattress. My three dogs — possessing either a keen interest in self-preservation or some excitement about what they thought was a slumber party — met us in there.

He turned on the radio. And we heard that slow-talking weather guy on KUAR say something like, "A tornado .... has been spotted ..... between Bryant ...... and ..... Shannon Hills."

Being about 2 miles from the Shannon Hills city limits, you can imagine this kind of freaked me out.

After about four minutes of intense fear and the resuming of jazz music from the station, the announcer came back on said the tornado was closer to Reynolds Road and heading away from us.

We figured the coast was clear.

We exited the hallway and I uttered what could be my "famous last words" for the night: "Wow, I never, ever want to hear those sirens again."

An hour later, the sirens were wailing non-stop and I was back in the hallway ... physically shaking like I do when I'm scared.

The husband remarked that he'd never known anyone to actually shake when they were scared. He thought it only happened in cartoons. Well, my life was suddenly just like three or four episodes of Scooby Doo because I couldn't stop shaking for about two hours.

The best part was when the second wave hit, the sirens were going off, the husband was hogging the fouton mattress and the jazz music was unbearable.

I hopped up and walked into the living room to cut off the music.

"I can't die listening to this," I said.

"I don't get your hatred for jazz," hubby said.

"We've had this conversation before. I don't want to talk about it right now."

He must've thought an argument would take my mind off of the storm, so he kept at it.

I guess it worked. A bit later, I watched the TV radar and figured the last wave was about an hour away. But all of that nervousness, fear and arguing finally took its toll on me and I fell asleep around midnight completely exhausted and figuring if a tornado blew me to Munchkinland, it would be an improvement.