Dorothy? Toto?

April showers bring May flowers, right? Well, what do April tornadoes bring? The answer is fear and panic amongst St. Louisans everywhere. Ok, maybe not, but you bet your ass I was down in the basement yesterday.

Nasty, ugly storms ripped through here yesterday afternoon. As I sat quietly playing on Facebook, I heard what appeared to be the tornado sirens. Undaunted, I ran to the living room window to see what was happening. The sky was grayish-green, the wind was blowing like crazy and it was raining so hard you couldn't see two inches in front of your face. When the sirens didn't let up, I thought it'd be in my best interest to go on down to the basement. I stood in the middle of the basement trying to remember what you're supposed to do. Is it stop, drop and roll? No, that doesn't sound right....is it scream at the top of your lungs? Helpful, but not quite. Is it go under the stairwell. Maybe. I continued to stand in the middle of the basement when I heard the eeriest thing-the Siren Man. The sirens stopped and then, all of a sudden, a voice yells out across south St. Louis "SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY". Um, thinking that didn't sound like a good thing, I was pretty cool with my current location in the basement. Given that tornadoes are one of my biggest fears (next to clowns and bridges), I was not happy at the irony that I was about to die in one. Alas, no twisters hit the city, but one did hit Des Peres a few miles away, damaging the mall (GASP!). Not five minutes after the creepy Siren Man spoke, the rain stopped, the clouds parted, the sun shined and the sky was blue. Weird stuff.