Magic Mike, a Derecho and Last Weekend. A Tragedy in Two, Maybe Three Parts

(post copyright 2012, Dawn Weber)
Part 1
All I wanted from last Friday night was to see naked young male movie stars in the premiere of  Magic Mike.

Yeah, I felt good, stepping into the elevator at 5 p.m. for a girls' night out to watch naked young male movie stars with a big group of mom friends. Prettied up, looking fancy. I mean - I wore clean shorts . . . lotion on my legs . . . lip gloss. I fixed my hair, for shit's sake. As if naked young male movie star Channing Tatum could see me from the theater screen.

When I walked outside, I realized I had made a huge mistake with the preening and the application of any kind of petroleum product. The sky was dark, and angry winds blew down High Street, churning up dirt, debris and homeless crackhead germs, all of which immediately glommed onto my lip-glossed lips and lotioned legs. Rain pelted me hard and sideways as I hustled up the street, causing the dust/debris/homeless crackhead germs to streak down my skin. 


We will not speak of the consequences to my hair.


Grooming: This is why I normally don't bother.

That's what I thought while I high-tailed it to the parking lot in a record four minutes. Before starting the ignition, I looked at the weather on my phone: severe thunderstorm warnings with possible high winds. Nothing too worrisome - no mention of tornados. Just a typical shitty Ohio summer storm forecast.

Still - something felt wrong - something seemed off. But I figured maybe I had just angered the gods in my quest to see naked young male movie stars.

So I started up the car and merged onto I-70 with all the other eastbound rush-hour dummies, racing through the driving rain. I tried to ignore my foreboding and concentrate on the prospect of  Magic Mike.

As I traveled, the weather grew more and more menacing. Hail. Punishing rains. Unbelievable wind.

Forty-five minutes into my commute, a few miles from home, the clouds turned pitch black. Branches and utility lines blew one way and another and the storm picked up, pounding until I could barely see the white lines - stopping, starting and stopping again. I kept going, though. Seemed like I didn't have a choice.

It grew still.

And just like a nightmare, through slapping windshield wipers I watched a Chevy sedan from the other side of the freeway spin around furiously three times, then crash through the thick cement barrier separating I-70 east and west. When the car came to a halt, no one was visible at the wheel.

But I couldn't stop. I couldn't help the driver, because that's when my husband called.

"Where you at? Be careful! A tornado just hit the house. But we are O.K. . . . we're O.K."

I mashed the pedal down and flew the last few miles home, suffering only a mild panic attack/infarction/stroke, past the wrecked cars and dangling power lines.

And there they were, up on the hill, just beyond 15 large downed trees in the yard and driveway. They stood under other trees buckling the porch roof. The three of them wide-eyed and trembling and shell-shocked. My family. They had gone to the basement. 

Thank God, they were O.K.

They were O.K.


The house? That's another story. Tune in next week for chaos . . . destruction . . . bad luck . . . but, sadly, no naked young male movie stars.