Come On, Irene

The next day, as I toiled away at the office, the Governor of the state where Scott lives ordered mandatory evacuations. So by the time I joined the rush hour follies, all of humanity had packed their cars a la the Clampets and were heading for higher ground. Higher ground that they must have expected to find in my state. I was on the road with a cast of thousands. All in a panic, all jockeying for road position. All a life-sized pain in the ass to be sharing the road with.

An hour later, when I was still on the bridge when I should have been pulling up in front of Lars house to retrieve my jubilant children, I felt the responsibility to call him. Hateful task. Someone has to be the bigger person.

He wasn’t too concerned with my arrival time, he wasn’t exactly engaged in actively responsible parenting. But being true to his Larsishness, he had been watching TV all day. The news. Weather updates on the storm, specifically.

I barely watch the news. If it affects me, for sure, I will find out about it. Snipets of top stories on the car radio. The front page headlines on the paper delivered to the office. Grousing around the microwave in the office kitchen…typically inclusive of the political landscape, the economy and stock market activity, who won what games. Surely, a war or gas rationing won't catch me by surprise.

The reasons are simple. I have enough crap to contend with right under my own roof and in my own office. I am not inclined to invite in a whole other world of S*** to make the picture that much more grim. And after having seen “Bowling for Columbine” I had heeded Michael Moore’s warning that the news is not the news like our parents watched. It is driven by political or other agendas, and intended to scare us. Illicit a specific response by making us fear something or someone. If you watch a variety of networks, imagine how confused you’d be! Do this or you'd be in financial ruin! Do that or there won't be any green grass for your children's children to enjoy!

But Lars, the couch potato, does not subscribe to this line of thinking. Instead he has listened to the harbingers of doom at the Weather Channel (Hello, how will they stay in business unless they can make the weather dramatic? It’s hard to get ratings with a drizzle and a light fog. The Storm of the Century? Now there is where your Nielsen’s are.)

He begins with a question. Sort of.

“Uuuhh, the kids tell me you are going to an amusement park tomorrow?”

“Yes, we have free passes that expire next week. Because we got rained out before.” Unflappable.

“Have you kept up with the news? You know there is a hurricane coming, right. Irene?”

Hurricane? What hurricane? Next you'll be telling me that John Lennon is dead!

I don’t answer. My only really thoughts on Irene were that it should have been named Estelle. You know. The devastation. The chaos. The WTF feeling when she's come and gone.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean…It’s a hurricane. Mass exodus. Panic time.”

I am sure I know what he’s trying to say. He just isn’t saying it with any clarity. What he’d like to say is, “Have you lost your freakin' mind going to an amusement park while a hurricane is coming? You must be the worst mother on the planet! It’s completely irresponsible!”

“Well, I intend to check the website before we leave tomorrow. And we’ll have some stuff with us in case the weather turns. We can always stay at Charlotte’s cottage. It is not far away.” Again. Unflappable. So what else is new?

“Ooookkkkkaaaaayyyyyy,” he says with that you’re-an-idiot-but-I-can’t-stop-you tone he likes to take when he’s sure I am gambling and sure to lose.

Truth is, I’ve had these very same doubts about our plans and my credibility as a mother all day, but as I sat, literally in park, in my car in Exodus traffic, I Googled the amusement park, clicked on the alert, and read that given their distance from the path of the storm, they intended to remain open all weekend.

So there. Until the park tells me otherwise, me and Hil and Pat were going to go enjoy a few rollercoasters and a really overpriced lunch. And hopefully some short lines for rides because the hurricane will surely keep more sensible folks away.

Bring it, Irene.