Tangled Thoughts

According to the news, on Friday “Over 3000 strikes were recorded in just over 2 hours.”

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(picture linked to source)

A few weeks ago we got a note basically saying that we had a curfew. In more or less words – we had to restrain from making noise after 11:30 at night, and while that might not seem like a hard thing, when most of your work is accomplished after midnight – it’s been challenging. One of the hardest nights is Thursday. Thursday night here is ‘movie night’ where a group of us get together to watch a movie on the projector. Normally these nights don’t end until well after midnight – so coming back upstairs, getting ready for bed and going into our respective rooms can be challenging.

Last night was no exception. At 1am we sheepishly climbed the stairs said good night via sign language and refrained from running any water. I turned out the light, climbed into bed and closed my eyes. Every once and a while I would awake to a loud crashing, and lightning. I looked out the window but didn’t see anything worth taking pictures of, turned out the fan and climbed back into bed.

“The good thing” I reasoned with myself “Is that if there is reason to worry, David and Amanda will surely alert me.” I rolled over to go back to sleep.

Crashing. But this was different. This was crashing outside the bedroom door.

Not moments later the door bust open.

Lightning crashed and illuminated the door – which is when I saw three pairs of wide eyes, a mountain of blankets, pillows, bed head and pjs. The crashing came from them barreling out of their room with blankets, pillows and other needed items for a camp out. It was fitting, after all. Since just a few days prior we had been discussing a camping trip. All we needed now was a tent.

“CHIIIIIIR!” Amanda whisper yelled. The tone in her voice said something was wrong. Very wrong. “WE’RE SCARED!” I grabbed the blanket and held it close. “WHY!” I asked, fear ran down my spine. “THE STORM IS REALLY BAD AND WE ARE EVACUATING!” Her tone said it all, and I joined the blanket evacuation. Hard as we tried, the doors creaked and slammed behind us.

Blankets and pillows followed us down the stairs, another bolt of lightning lit up the stair well. We hurried. As if running to the cellar to escape the great tornado, not running to the downstairs room because of lightning.

Huddled under blankets we watched as the lightning hit over and over. Storms. They aren’t our thing. Especially thunder and lightning storms.

We don’t do the lightning storms.

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(picture linked to source)

The following day we shampooed the carpets <– While this may seem out of place, it is very important to the story.

Later that night I went to bed as usual. There was some thunder and some lightning, but nothing serious, yet. Amanda had mentioned they might come over and sleep in here, but nothing was confirmed – and they went to bed. Or so I thought. I jokingly told her that I would see them at 2 am and continued about my business.

1:56am – The door busts open.

Turns out that the chemical smells from the carpet shampoo was giving both David and Amanda problems. David felt sick, and Amanda couldn’t breathe. They couldn’t sleep downstairs because there was an early morning meeting, but they couldn’t sleep in their room either. Could they sleep in mine?

My room is already small. Add in three extra people and it gets even smaller. It was hot already. But add in extra bodies and the heat doubles. The window was open, but it was doing little good, so we decided to crack the door. The only problem was – the noise carried down the hall. The little fan did little to reduce the heat, and Amanda was still having problems breathing.

It was, a long, hot, restless night.

The following day – the author of the note requesting our cooperation and silence after 11:30 at night asked what had possibly happened.  Was the roof leaking?  Fortunately for all involved, the roof was not leaking again – we were just practicing our evacuation routes.

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We are {tired} yet proud survivors of yet another storm. But just barely.  Who knows, maybe someday we will write the “Survivors Guide to Storms” since we are pros, and all.