Thomas and I always watch the weather while he's eating breakfast in the morning. This morning, Anthony Yanez on channel 2 said that the high was 92, but that it'd feel like upper 90s with the humidity. We left for swim lessons at 4:30, and sure enough, it was 92 degrees. Hot and sticky. Just like the forecast. Good job, Anthony...
You know where this is going.
15 minutes into his lesson, the sky becomes a very dark shade of gray in the distance. Very ominous. Very. I even make a comment to the lady next to me about it, and she mentions that she's seen a lot of stories about tornadoes on the news lately. The wind starts to pick up, and there is a nip in the air.
The swim lessons continue. I'm actually starting to get goosebumps, so I can't imagine how cold the swimmers are. One of the life guards starts looking at the Doppler radar on some handheld device. The wind is really going after it now--soccer goals are blowing over in the field behind the pool, branches are coming down from trees, trash is flying around, dirt is too. So weird. Still, swimming continued, as well as T-ball and soccer practice in the fields.
Anyway, this goes on for awhile. But they only stop the swimming for thunder and lightening. The lady and I kept listening for thunder, thinking we were hearing it, but it would end up being a motorcycle engine or something. I put Lucy back in her carseat, thinking at any moment, we'd be running for shelter.
Then, all of a sudden, "BOOM!" Whistles blow. "Everyone out of the pool!" Thomas jumps out, along with everyone else. I'm thinking, "This isn't really that bad. It's barely drizzling out here. We'll just go to the car, and be on our way." Thomas is way ahead of us, I am pushing the stroller, Anna is commenting on the rain drops, and Rose is picking up trash that's flying around the pool. I look around, and everyone has made it inside, and we're only halfway to the door.
Once we're inside, the power is completely out. No lights. People roaming the halls. Twilight Zone at the YMCA. Thomas is still half a mile ahead of us, and Rose is just as far behind. She's walking slowly and deliberately, probably thinking, "What is going on?" "Rose, come on baby. It's gonna storm." Then, a lot louder, "Thomas, will you slow down and wait for the rest of us?"
(I hope you're still with me. Sorry this is so long.)
Well, on our walk from the pool to the front door to the parking lot, the rains came. All of them. Underneath the awning, I gathered my keys, put Anna's beach towel on top of Lucy, and picked up the snail. "1...2...3...Go! Hurry. Run, but still stay close to me! Hurry!"
You should have seen the parking lot. TONS of people, running for their cars. All the people that were in the fields, all the swimmers and their parents, not to mention the people that were working out when the power went off. It was funny. Well, it was funny until we--er, I--forgot where the car was. We started going one way, then I remembered we were parked in the other direction.
We finally get to the car--Lucy is screaming bloody murder, Anna is whining, Rose looks like I've entered her in some wet T-shirt contest, and Thomas was just running his heart out. "Get in! Get in! Hurry!" I get Lucy in, open the back of the car to put the stroller in, run to the other side of the van to buckle up Rose. The wind is awful. The rain is just pelting down on me. The kind of rain that hurts--that feels like water balloons are being thrown on you from way up in the clouds. And get this, Thomas said from the back seat, "Can you hurry up and close the door? I'm getting wet in here." Really, Einstein? Really?
We ended up sitting in the parking lot for five minutes, waiting in a long line to get out. We were at the back of the line. What? Didn't anyone else have 4 children under 6 to load up in their minivan? Lucy continued to bawl her eyes out, Anna was crying because her seat belt was twisted, and I looked like a drowned rat. You know the look--when you put product on your hair in the morning, then it gets wet, then it stiffens? Gorgeous.
So, it might not have been 5 minutes, but in one hour, it went from 92 degrees to 67 degrees. Fun times.
3 comments:
you are so right..it did come out of NO WHERE..Shane took Emily to swim practice and had to turn around to pick her up..Great story..made me smile.
too funny!! you know we had like one drop of rain. it looked so bad, the winds were horrible and then it just disappeared! too bad - my grass is really dry.
Hilarious! Bet you got some good sleep that night. It's so tiring to hurry four little kids to the car in bad weather.
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