We Are Under a Tornado Warning ~ Please Go To the Center of the Store

After church every Sunday, we go and eat with friends. Today Jamie suggested we go to Cracker Barrel which is my favorite! I should have known something was up....but I just said "that sounds great". While we were eating Jamie asked what I was going to be doing for the rest of the day. Again.....I should have been waaaay smarter, however, I reply "nothin". She says....So, you can go to Birmingham shopping with me! OH NO!!!

Now, don't get me wrong, Jamie is one of my VERY best friends and I LOVE her dearly! BUT, everytime we go shopping she whips out her "list"! She has a "list" for everything she needs and everything she is looking for and it just goes on and on and on! This woman has an agenda! Always!! But, being the good friend I am, I agree to go with her. Steve looks at me and says, you know it is supposed to be really bad weather today. I told him I would keep my head down and he says well, if you get hit by a tornado, I don't want to know about it! I say okaaaay, somebody be sure they don't list my beloved husband in my obituary, cos' he doesn't know I am dead. He thinks I am still shopping...... and off we go!

Now, since we are going from church, and we have not been home yet, we are wearing dresses.

We drive to B'ham (about an hour away) and the sky is getting darker and darker. I keep looking up at it and all around, but Jamie is just happily chatting away, oblivious to the rapidly deteriorating weather conditions. First on her list, Southeastern Salvage in Irondale.

We get there and the weather sirens are going off, but we assume it is a thunderstorm "warning". We go in and start shopping and hunting "stuff". I tell her if I get killed, Steve is really gonna be made at her! We make our way back to the front of the store and Jamie starts digging in this bin of cabinet hardware, trying to find 6 of one thing and 5 of another. I start helping her dig when the sirens go off again. I crane my head around and look 0utside and it is AWFUL!! The rain and trees are horizontal the wind is blowing so hard!!! I look back at Jamie who is happily digging away in her bin and I say "this is no thunderstorm warning"!! About that time some man literally blows in the front door and tells us a funnel cloud has just been spotted heading our way! The manager announces that everyone should move to the center of the store and about that time the power goes out! Well, this is it, I think! I can't see my hand in front of my face so I flip open my phone and scream JAMIE!! Run to the light!! She comes running over and we sit down on some stools there and are just waiting it out. They have a popcorn machine there where we are sitting, so we start munching popcorn when I happen to look over and notice this girl is standing there with a throw pillow on her head!! A little throw pillow! I am thinking she should have grabbed one of the chaise lounge cushions, at least that would cover more of her body. I look at Jamie and say "does she really think that if a steel girder comes crashing down on us, that dinky little pillow is going to save her life? God bless her!

So anyway the storm blows over, literally, and the lights come back on, and we realize we have survived! I look at Jamie and tell her "if a tornado had hit this building, and they had to come and pull my dead body out of it with my dress all up over my head, I would be so pissed at you!! Plus the fact that your only purchase is 5 handles for $1.48 each that you could have gotten at Lowes at HOME for 1.60 each!! " She just thought that was hilarious, whips out her list and names off the other fifty-leven stops we have to make!

Lord help me!