July 09, 2005
HURRICANE AMUSEMENTS
An offshoot of letting your OCD control the TV clicker is that you get to watch wayyyyyy too many interviews with locals who have had personal items and property damaged by the storm. TV crews with round-the-clock airtime to fill are like moths to the flame when it comes to downed trees and cars crunched by debris.
After a while you notice a pattern: The only people who are affected by hurricane damage are the people who are unprepared for TV interviews.
As a result, you get to sample the entire genetic boulliabase in a weekend's buffet of closeup shots.
Like this guy, whom I'm affectionately nicknaming The Bump.
...and then he showed off his fingertip, as if the cranial volcano had erupted some sort of Bump Lava.
An aside: The National Weather Service announced that, based on current projections, The Bump is increasing in size in the warm waters of his forehead and will make landfall at his hair line sometime around 2 a.m.
You all can hate me later for this. It's okay.
Anyway, The Bump, who seems like a very lovely man who reacts quite calmly under stress, starts talking about "a loud noise, like a train," as if he's reading from a fresh set of Disaster Preparedness Cue Cards. He then says The Words.
"Hunker down."
Yes. The two magic words of hurricane season. Every time I hear someone innocently utter "hunker down," I feel compelled to scream it back at them in a loud, train-like, "I'm-Biwwy,-I-Make-The-Fries" kind of mighty yawp.
It's Pavlovian. After four hurricanes last year, I had said it almost as a mantra.
So when The Bump said it earlier today, I lost control of my bowels and yelled it like a man trying to signal a rescue helicopter from the bottom of a crevasse.
Now I'll not only associate "hunker down" with yelling. I'll also connect it to The Bump.
This kind of neurosis is like a black hole, accumulating mass as it spins through the universe of my brain.
rofll!! I didnt see The Bump!!! I've been watching all the channels, how'd he escape my notice!
I can see you're now waxing poetic in the universe of your brain as well ;)