The (random) events of March 10

March 10 (all times are approximate)
2:00 p.m.-I am sitting in a dentist's chair, doing my best impression of a normal person who is unbothered by impending shots and drills. I believe I fail but the people there are nice enough people and they do not point and laugh. We talk about the sunny warm weather and the chance of strong storms.
3:45 p.m.-I blow on my heated credit card and pat myself on the back for not crying like a little girl in that chair. Next time, I may ask for gas. Or a Valium or a drink or something.
4:00 p.m.-traffic comes to a complete stop on the interstate for no apparent reason. I drive to and from the ends of the earth daily so I have seen this phenomenon enough not to think a second thought about it. I wait impatiently and then proceed on.
4:20 p.m.-I pass the street to my subdivision because it is closed for repairs to the railroad crossing.

4:30 p.m.-I make a rolling stop/left hand turn at the four-way stop at the next street because, although you can't go anywhere in Benton on a straight path, there are at least six different circuitous paths through collections of neighborhoods to any destination. You can't get anywhere fast but you can always get there.
4:32 p.m.-I see blue lights flashing behind and coming at a high rate of speed.
4:33 p.m.-I pull over and think "Oh, no, not me! Please not me!"
4:34 p.m.-Sheriff's deputy passes me at a high rate of speed.
4:35 p.m.-In my rear view mirror, I see two more cars with flashing lights coming at the same high rate of speed and think "Am I about to be on an episode of Cops?"
4:36 p.m.-They pass me at a high rate of speed. When the car stops shuddering, I pull out on the road.
4:37 p.m.-Another Sheriff's deputy comes from out of nowhere. I pull over. He passes me. I turn off of this two-lane into the nevernever that stands between me and my house. I once nearly hit a dog sleeping in the middle of this road. Benton's sorta like that, too. I proceed carefully.
4:42 p.m.-I pull into my garage and shut it behind me. Then I walk through the house and open the windows as it is 76 degrees outside. I think fleetingly about cleaning up the yard for the Terminix man's visit tomorrow. And I decide he's probably seen worse. I go lay down on the bed. Epinephrine takes it out of me. I don't sleep. I read my book.
5:30 p.m.-I decide my mouth is awake enough to eat. Although my tooth hardly ever goes numb, the six or so shots I get really work on the rest of my mouth.

5:40 p.m.-I sit down to eat my noodles and tomatoes dinner. I don't look in a mirror but feel sure I look like a camel eating noodles because my lips still aren't working properly. I don't care.
6:30 p.m.-I get the first call from my aunt. "Are you OK? Do you have any hail damage?" I go look out the window: dry grass, dry sidewalk, dry street. "Nope. No hail at all." She's had so much that she couldn't see the house next door. Fifteen minutes away...I have none.
7:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m.-phone calls from concerned friends who have heard about damage in Benton and are listening to sirens where they are. I look out the window: dry grass, dry sidewalk, dry street. No sirens, not that that means much as Benton has the puniest sirens...for a city that gets hit nearly every time there's a tornado and sirens you can't even hear...it's just not right. I'm still waiting for my $5 donation to kick in.
8:00 p.m.-I return to my regularly scheduled programming: American Idol on Fox. Not that I saw any of it. Between the technical difficulties and the weather, it just didn't happen. I have every intention of sending a note (not really) to the weather man at Fox to help him with the word "hail" because he said it every other sentence for the time I had television and every time it sounded more like "helel." Everybody around here knows it has an "a" in it. For authenticity, he should say "hay-ill" instead. He pronounced "Benton" very precisely: "Ben-tonne" instead of "bintin" all run together. I thought that was kind of cute.
8:10 p.m.-the bottom falls out at my house. Rain first comes blowing in and I shut the windows. And then hail. Lots of it. I shoehorn myself and Darcy in my closet. Then it stops.
8:20 p.m.-Fox is off the air. It does not come back on. I decide to clean. It seemed like the thing to do (except if the Terminix man wasn't coming inside the house tomorrow, I'd have skipped that too.)
9:00 p.m.-I check the television again. I give up and go read.