'Tis the Season

I got this email from Home Depot yesterday. Even though I changed my 'store' to the one in Evanston, Illinois, they still think I live in Florida. Just seeing this brought back all the stomach churning apprehension that I felt every summer for twenty seven years. For six months out of the year I had to live with the possibility that a storm could form out in the Atlantic and find its way to Fort Lauderdale. In all those years I had to endure at least five hurricanes and a few tropical storms. The worst being Hurricane Wilma. That storm left us two weeks without electricity or phone service, and five days without water. And of course each time we got hit with a storm, I had to clean up downed trees, mangled fences, and retrieve the neighbor's shed from the bottom of our swimming pool. With Hurricane Wilma I was seriously scared. The wind howled, the rains came down sideways, and I went through three pair of underpants.

Now I live in Chicago. Sure there are tornadoes in the Midwest, but they rarely if ever hit within the city limits. I think the heat from the buildings or the coolness of Lake Michigan break them up. And yes, we have snow and cold. But the snow and cold never make our electric go out, never make the water go away. When it snows I just sit in my big fluffy chair and watch some television, and at some point go out and run the snow blower up and down the sidewalk. Snow cleanup takes ten minutes from start to finish. Seriously, I do not miss Florida at all.