The tornado sirens went off yesterday – this late in October!! I was sitting here working on something and  over the noise of a train, I thought I heard a high pitched whine. It was extremely windy and I figured it was that wind funneling between something and making a whistle. Well, I was close with the funnel part.

At the time, I just sat here listening and thought, “Is that the tornado siren?” Then, for some reason, I had this irresistible urge to think “si-reen”, as in, “Was that the tornado si-reen?”

And I sat here for longer, looking at the weather.com page to see what was going on. Well, there was a lot of red around our town. Bright red – weather map bright red. Then, again, there was that si-reen.  You know how you think it will never happen to you? Well, it didn’t. The si-reen stopped.

By this time, I’m thinking I’m fairly stupid because the last time I begrudgingly went to the basement for the kids’ sake, I did come up to find a tree down across the street and later found out about a huge tree down at Mother’s.

I then landed on the idea that if someone were to yell “Tornado” in a movie theater crowded with AmeliaJakes, there probably would not be a stampede. I believe I am going to have to start hearing the call of “SNAKE” in my mind when the siren goes off. That will get me moving.

The dude part of the post title? Well, you see, in the evening, a run of “Billy the Exterminator” shows began and, after a while, I realized Billy and his brother, Rick, call each other “Dude” all the time.

“Look out, Dude. There’s a snake, wasp, skunk, beaver, whaterver!”

“Whoa, Dude, you are right.”

“Dude, that was intense.”

“Right, Dude.”

So, of course, I had to point this out to Summer and we called each other Dude for the rest of the night.