the storm, it was a-brewin'

For all of you readers who don't live in St. Louis (all two of you, is what I mean) allow me to dissect the little storm that we had, and when I say little I really mean Holy Shit! That's a storm!

It was called the closest thing to a hurricane the Midwest could ever experience. Yesterday I mentioned something about 60 mph winds, and it was actually more like 80 mph. It left over 400,000 people without power. There are only 3 million people in St. Louis! 1/6 is an enormous percentage. Ameren, the power company, said in a "normal" bad storm 100 towers "go down." In this particular storm, it was more like 400. Each of the towers provides 15,000 homes with power. That, my darlings, is a major power outage, and it's not expected to be entirely fixed for another 4-5 days.

And thus, PANDELIRIUM! if I may be so bold as to quote Jeff Foxworthy.

Because 100 degree weather doesn't mesh so well with nearly 1/2 a million people without power. People with pets who get hot too. People with elderly relatives who can't use their AC, their fans, and most troublesome, their phones.

Last night while driving home from celebrating SH's birthday, I got a little spooked. There simply weren't any lights on, anywhere. South City was hit the hardest as far as outages and property damage. The sidewalks were filled with people with nowhere to go. Hot outside but hotter inside, so naturally they all came out in foul moods, hungry, stressed out, and did I mention HOT?

A group of us went out to dinner only to find the restaurant had a party of 30. The next restaurant, reached 20 minutes later because traffic signals were out, was arrived at by mistake. We thought we were in a different restaurant, a much, much cheaper restaurant. OOPS! So we left with a smidgen of shame after having sat for 10 minutes already. We got to the right restaurant and it was packed. The birthday girl suggested we all go get McDonald's and bring it back to the house so we could get to the game playing and cupcake-gobbling.

I shit not - it took 45 minutes to get back to their house. Every traffic light was out. Every single fucking drive-thru was longer than it would be even at 12-1pm when everyone is on lunch. No one could eat the food at home because at that point their food was either spoiled or they were too afraid to open the fridge because every last whiff of cold air in there should stay in there.

Did I mention that somehow Micah and I didn't lose power? It was a freak of nature thing. Our block was the only block within miles that had power. The entire strip of South Grand was black. I don't understand why businesses weren't getting looted right and left, but perhaps people just haven't reached their boiling points yet. Or maybe, just maybe, people can be decent.

Still didn't keep the streets from feeling weird. Like apocolypse weird. There's a ridiculous amount of damage to the trees, and some major buildings (including the airport) lost chunks, if not entire sections, of roof. Every single street is littered with branches and debris. Our beloved neighborhood park makes me want to cry it's so jacked up. And I've seen at least 10 of these within just a few miles of home:

And every single one of them has a baby in a yellow buggy! Weird, right? They are National Guardsbabies. They start their training young. It takes many years to raise a good hero. I'm pretty sure that's what the National Guard does - look heroic. Because when they are called in, something really shitty happened in your town, and that's when you need a hero. (Also, millions of dollars to clean it up.)

Can we talk for a moment about the proper procedure when one reaches a four-way stop, which is just about every block in this town before the power outages? Apparently the people in this town need a little refresher. We already have little to no respect for anything telling us to STOP, so I think it's time for an intervention. Now how do I get all 3 million people to read this blog...?

Some DOs and DON'Ts For Four-way Stops:
(mostly don'ts, let's be real)
--> DON'T be messin' with your radio when you're up to bat. We don't have time for that. Pay attention.
--> DON'T zoom ahead after the person you're behind because you know you can get away with it if you cram far enough up that car's ass. This is not Noah's fucking Ark.
--> DO watch for who is already stopped when you are at the front of the line. In fact, if you want a shiny gold star sticker, keep tabs on who is where when you are three cars back. Progressive, I know.
--> DON'T wait for someone like me to get pissed. I will direct traffic, and I won't feel bad about it, because I've realized people actually move when I tell them too when I lay on my horn and flail my arms, because YOUR FUCKING TURN, ASSHOLE is the same in every language.
--> DO realize that the most efficient way to get through an intersection is if all the north and south facing people move at the same time, followed by all the east and west. Two simple moves! North and south! GO! East and west! GO!
--> DON'T sit there with your mouth hanging open, inching ever so much further, inchy inchy bo-binchy, until you're halfway through the intersection. If you're going to disregard the pattern, you'd better haul some fucking ass.

At least people actually started stopping at the blacked-out lights. During the first 12 hours or so post-storm, before the portable stop signs are put up, I really think most folks just cruise right through because their automatic pilots don't see a red light. No red light? Must be green, even if I can't see it for some reason right now!

I apologize if the lecture is unneeded. I'm stewing over the fact that it took me thirty minutes of my lunch break to get to my bank, the farther away bank because the first still doesn't have power. I sat in 1/2 mile back-ups at unlit lights only to arrive at the bank believing in the power of thinking rapid positive thoughts, rapid to the point of brain-curdle: pleaselettherebepowerpleaselettherebepower...pleaselet...pleaselet...FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK! Storm is NO LONGER INTERESTING!

I'm done. Class dismissed. Please don't tell your mommy how much I used the word fuck.