Crash! Bang! Boom!

By nature, I am a pretty decent-sized chicken. To fly I need plenty of pills, a roller coaster seat has never seen my butt, elevators make me hyperventilate, and I throw milk away a day before its expiration date.

But give me a storm any day.

Crashing thunder! Hair-raising lightening! Torrential rains! I love them!

I wonder what it is about storms that floats my boat. They certainly are scary. The world seems to be out of control, things happening in the sky that not even the most brilliant scientist, the most ardent control freak, can cause to cease.

Remember what we as kids used to say about storms? Thunder is the angels bowling. Lightening is God taking a picture. Rain is God crying (that last one is pretty sad, come to think of it).

Thank goodness I've never been close enough to a tornado to even have to take cover, but the idea thrills me. Of course, it would be terrifying and I would never want it to actually happen, but those freak winds of nature fascinate me. Air that swirls, grabbing and tossing anything it wants, choosing to leave other things completely untouched.

I remember some days when the sky became green, really green, and I couldn't believe my eyes. While the rain poured I would wait, tense and thrilled, for the strange quiet that I knew would come before a twister. Then would come the train sound, like a locomotive in the house, a deafening, eerie procession of invisible rail cars that would streak across the sky, enveloping houses, trees, cars.

But it never came to me. Thank goodness. I wonder how brave I'd be then.