The Second Coming Of Christ

Today the anticlimax was the bane of my existence. I came home around nine today, only to be informed of a tornado warning in the area. I didn't really listen until around nine thirty, when my brother started freaking out in the living room like he had seen the eyes of God piercing through the darkened heavens.

"We need to get downstairs! The weather is scary outside."

"We will be fine sweetie."

From down the hall, I heard the news anchor on TV declare his forecast of the weather:

We interrupt your worrying to bring you another thing to worry about. The tornado warning has been put in effect in Ward county. Cower in your basements puny mortals!

"Mom. . .where do we live?"

"Ward County."

"Mom, I don't want to die!"

Five minutes later, my parents shouted down the hall to unplug everything and head downstairs. At the foot of the stairs stood my incredibly wired brother, clutching our dog as if she was his last lifeline on earth.

"Hurry and get down here! It's not safe upstairs!"

"J, it's just a tornado. We're not going to die."

"How do you know that? You know what? Just leave me alone."

"J, just calm down. Give me the dog." The poor dog by now was gazing longingly at the floor, as if visualizing her escape from the terrified eleven year old who was noticeably keeping at least three feet from the window downstairs.

"I will not give you the dog! She's terrified!"

Before I could retort that this was clearly projection onto the dog, my mother came downstairs, cleared out the laundry closet and told us to get inside. I went upstairs to get our other dog, a notebook, and my brother's gameboy, for in the course of roughly three minutes the storm had transformed from the second coming of Christ to something only almost as interesting as his video game.

Nearly as soon as I reentered the closet, the warning passed, leaving me highly angry at mother nature for not giving the just retribution to Minot that she had promised. It had appeared that mother nature was trying to appease me, for fifteen minutes later she promised a return of the tornado from earlier. Once again I trudged down to the closet, hoping for some sort of climax to all this buildup. And. . .nothing. I spent fifteen minutes in a closet with my brother and our dogs, who were making abominable noises and smells, and I didn't even get to say it was for any reason.

Incidentally, my brother was the last to leave the closet. He wanted to sleep in it, but my mother wouldn't let him.

"Everything that's important to me is in here," he said, pointing at his videogames. "Oh, except you guys I guess. You're kind of important too."