Just Kidding

I am  cleaning up my blog. I have so many posts I never got around to posting! This is pretty recent, I wrote it about a week ago...... hey,  be kind, I didn't really edit....

 Life has been really busy around my house. I get crazy every year around this time filling orders for Christmas. I was working away yesterday when I got a text from my son.

"Are you OK???? We just had a tornado alert!"

Me: "Tonado????" (yes I spelled it wrong, I have a smart phone that is hard to text on, my phone makes me look stupid.)

Son: " Yes! It is really bad in Portland and heading towards Vancouver. You need to let the dogs in!"

At this point I think my son is teasing me. I head off to the computer to check the weather. Meanwhile I hear thunder and rain pelting the house. Just as I find a weather report my mom starts calling. She has dementia so this is a common occurrence, real common, like once every hour. This phone rings and rings so I finally pick it up.

"Melinda, oh hi, I was on my way to the beach and a tornado hit the coast so we turned around. Are you safe?" (yea, I am safe but I need to get back to my orders if anyone wants to buy food this week)

So how did my son get my loopy mother in on the joke? I assure her all is well. She is in a care facility so I know she didn't venture off to the beach. I check the weather report and see a tornado did in fact land about 40 miles south of us. So according to the local news we are not having a tornado warning but a flood warning.  I text my son,

Me: "They canceled the warning, there is a flood warning"

Son: "Oh, well my school is in lock down and all the kids are in the cafeteria" ( lock down happens when there is a safety threat, the cafeteria is in the basement)

Me: "Well, don't worry and enjoy the drama"

After school I get the the whole story. My daughter tells me they had lock down at their school because of a "big storm". End of story.

 My son tells me a much more dramatic version. Some kids were outside playing and they saw a huge wall of a storm headed their way. They panic and run into the school. One is crying. (remember this is an arts magnet school, the kid was probably a theater student) My son was goofing off with a friend in theater class. (We will address the behavior issue at a later date)  His friend stops goofing and looks concerned like she is thinking about a grave issue. (my son is deaf and goofing off so he has  no auditory cues or information from his interpreter) The friend then tells him there is a tornado warning. He thinks she is kidding so he tells her there is an alien warning. Then another kid runs up and tells him the same thing. The kids are then herded into the cafeteria. He tells me the kids are all "freaking out".

So Haddy is shuffled off to the cafeteria. I learn about how some kids were praying, some were writing Wills for their families. I watch him as he giggles and relives the drama. I learn that when he saw my text about the flood warning he announced it and "forgot " to mention that there was no tornado warning.  He tells the kids he wishes he had a surf board while they freak out because they are in the basement.  Haddy is always joking. I learn that maybe my kid might be the calm one in an emergency. I also learn that somehow he can extract specific information, really specific stuff, even when folks are "freaked out".  I also learn he has entered the realm of fearless teenager. So the end of the story?

"Mom, art schoolers are so dramatic, the funny thing is they haven't really had to deal with anything"