Well, seven nights past August 13th 2004…a Friday by the way….found us lying sleepless yet again on a mattress on the living room floor. It was after all the driest part of the house after Hurricane Charlie showed us who was boss and took a large part of our roof. It was the seventh day without electricity, A.C. or even hot water and the Florida humidity laden air could be sliced with a dull knife…it was the seventh night of poor sleep…..and the sixth day of listening to our nice neighbors generator. Its racket blasted through the remnants of our home day and night without ceasing except brief refueling moments……its sole purpose was to keep some ice cream frozen.
As the hour touched 2 a.m. I rose from the mattress…jay bird naked…donned one right shoe and strutted out across the adjoining yards and in my nakedness I kicked the living shit out of that generator until it whimpered into silence and my rage subsided. Upon returning to my mattress my wife started to laugh for the first time in a week….and I pleasantly shared that with her. Poor Bill who owned that generator has recently passed and I have become the new owner. And I shall think of him after the next devastation while I eat frozen ice cream.
Not long after the devastation of Hurricane Charlie were a series of other hurricanes and I was somewhat amused at the preparations people took….if you are from the North you know what I’m saying. A major snow storm is on its way and the stores are packed with every one buying up eight days worth of food stuffs getting ready to hunker down for the long haul. The fact that in all of living memory no one has been snowbound over two days is irrelevant.
So when it looked like we were about to get hit by a hurricane again Mag and I were down at the local super market stocking up like every one else ….only our shopping carts were filled with gallon jugs of water , beer and ice. This brought lots of comments from the non veteran hurricane people who came down to tighten up their winter properties and stood there with shopping carts full of perishables…. “ Looks like you know how to ride out a storm .” they laughed. So I had to mention for their benefit that…….
“Two days with out electricity and I can trade one “cold one” for two grilled steak dinners and all the fixins all over town”……..
And now…I hate kites
