Isaac's Googly Eye

It was only a couple of days ago that they were saying Tropical Storm Isaac was a disorganized a storm with no well-developed eye. But now it seems to have gotten its shit together, and it's heading straight for us. In these situations I tend to panic. And so...AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! Run for the car! Hide the money and the liquor, get the guns! Oh wait, I'm confusing hurricane evacuations with looting my grandparent's house. All I have to do today is pack for my friend Hailey's, who lives to the east of here in an undisclosed location. It's so undisclosed, in fact, that I've been instructed to drive there blindfolded, which is slightly less dangerous than texting while driving.

My point to all of this, as far as Payphone is concerned, is that I might not be able to write for a few days. The kids have off of school, and I need to go into work this morning and find out what in the hell's angels is going on. Until a month ago, I worked in the Safety and Security department, and it was our job to arrange hurricane prep plans for the hospital. But in the two and a half years I was there, we never had a storm. So now I don't know what exactly my role is. I think it's to go into the office, grab my laptop and run. I am ok with this.

Isaac is such an unsentimental bastard that it plans to make landfall on the 7th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Maybe this is why I've gone physically numb from time to time in the last 24 hours. Hurricane evacuations were fun when I was a kid. My family would drive up to my uncle's house in Shreveport and my sisters and I would play with our cousins and get a few days off of school. Like a spontaneous vacation. Things were always in one piece when we got back. Now, even though things will most likely be fine, there's this nagging fear that they might not be. Or that we won't be able to come home for weeks, and when we do, things will be different. If I may make my first understatement for the day, it's a bitch to think about.

Stay safe, everyone. Load up on the necessities and all of the things they tell you to do, and remember, even though you might regularly avoid that one neighbour who has an insane arsenal, rants about the inevitability of America's collapse to the point where everyone feels a little uncomfortable at parties, and he maintains a fallout shelter in his backyard from the 50's, you might wanna buy him a beer. Maybe he's not so bad afterall.