Jedi Mind Powers

My fam is currently deep into vacation preparations for a trip to the beautiful North Carolina beaches next week.  Since we are renting a house on an island where groceries can get a little pricey, I have been working my coupon magic over the past couple of months to get food for the trip.  Dry goods bin is packed and sitting by the door to the deck, cooler is empty and ready to be filled with our frozens. 

The Kiddos have been raring to go since summer began.  If we had let Girl #2, she would have packed her entire set of summer clothes and stuffed animal collection on June 10, the day after school ended.  We actually caught her halfway through the process and had a lengthy discussion about why she needed to keep her clothes out to actually, you know, wear during the summer.  Sorry Girl #2, but The Man hates naked.  Thankfully, Girl #2 is nothing if not open to reason and has been fully clothed all summer.

All pre-game preparations were humming along until I checked the weather yesterday evening.  Opening up weather.com, I went to the 10-day forecast.  Hmmm, I thought to myself as I clicked around the site, nothing out of the ordinary….thunderstorms….fine….low 90s….OK, looking good….wait, what?  Emily?  EMILY?!?!?!?! 

“HUUUSSSSSBAAAAAND!!!!”

“What?”

(frantically putting on my meteorologist hat to analyze projected paths and strengthening potential)

“There’s a HURRICANE THAT’S GOING TO HIT US DURING VACATION!”

Husband sighs.

Perhaps this would be a good time to mention my slight propensity to blow things a BIT out of proportion.  The jump to conclusions mat from Office Space?  Sign.  Me.  Up. 

To illustrate - last summer one of my tires slowly went flat during an hour-long solo trip to my parents’ house.  Because I tend to crank up my Broadway/Glee mix CDs when I’m alone in the car (OK, OK, and because I’m generally oblivious to the world around me), I noticed (and heard) nothing.  The tire was almost completely flat before I realized something was up.  Or another motorist kindly told me.  Bygones.

The next day, I trucked the flat tire over to my car place and explained what had happened.  Fifteen minutes later, the shop front desk guy came out and asked what made me think that the tire was flat.  I explained the situation, complete with “thump, thwak, thump, thwak” sound effects.  The guy looks at me, pauses, then tells me that they hooked up the flat-tire-air-machine-analyzer (yes, official name) and didn’t find anything….YOU STUPID GIRL.  (OK, I made up that last part.  But it was implied.)  I slunk out quickly.

I promise you that the tire was flat.  Really.  I have witnesses and everything.  But, as it magically sealed itself, I can only assume that my claims of possessing magic (Student:  How’d you know I was texting, Mrs. Alison?  Me:  Because I’m magic.) are actually true.  As far as mending flat tires goes, anyway.

Back to my blowing things out of proportion.  Since my flat tire incident, I have been paranoid that I’m hearing flat-tire noises when I drive.  I’m not proud of it, but I constantly think my left front tire is going to blow.  And I have been so sure of a flat that I’ve pulled off the road to check.  Irrational?  Sure.  My reality?  Yup.

Now, let’s take this special little brand of crazy and apply it to Tropical Storm Emily. 

I now know that there’s a storm near Haiti that has a chance of hitting (grazing, really) southern North Carolina on Sunday at 2 p.m.  This is the exact time when we are supposed to be on a ferry to our island paradise.  My mind immediately pictures The Perfect Storm combined with Titanic.  Husband shrugs and says "what can we do?  It is what it is" while I’m figuring out how many kids can fit on an abandoned door.

In between hurricane survival contingency plans, my brain tells me I need to use its remaining capacity to move the path of the storm out to the Atlantic.  What, you didn’t know I have weather-affecting mind powers?  Pfffffttttt, of COURSE I do!  Why else have I been checking weather and hurricane-related websites on a five-minute basis since I found out about the storm, pausing only to sleep and recharge my magic? 

And don’t even try to tell me it hasn’t worked – I’ve already saved the western coast of Florida just since last night.  You’re welcome, Tampa!

Um, do I need to explain why Husband is pretty much a saint?  No?  OK then, back to NOAA.gov – I’ve got a tropical storm path to divert!