What Do You Grab When You Run to Take Cover?

If someone had told me how often we'd be running for shelter in the past few years to our dark, dank, spidery crawl space, I would've laughed out loud. Suburban life makes you soft. You start thinking nothing could possibly touch your idyllic town with tree-lined streets and picket fences.

The sirens went off earlier this week, as ominous clouds seemed to melt over the beautiful blue evening sky with puffy white clouds. I, with my four children and a neighbor kid had just returned from the city swimming pool and we were hanging our wet towels on the clothesline.

The storm whipped up suddenly, and the siren was jarring. In order to get down to our crawl space, we had to open a closet and removed the contents: a vacuum cleaner, some backpacks, and a large box containing snow boots and out-of-season shoes.

When you need to duck for cover rightnowrightnowrightnow, your mind starts racing. I started mentally scolding myself for not being more prepared. Where are the flashlights? Will the kids be scared? Should I take candles? Snacks? In those first few moments of the blaring siren, my kids scattered everywhere. We were all making one mad dash to gather what we saw as the essentials: I was able to find some snacks and blankets. My son located the flashlight.

The next thing I know, all three of my boys are bringing their guitars toward the entry of the crawl space, the treasures that they've acquired in the last few years. My oldest son saved up his money to go towards his electric bass, and he wasn't about to let it get mangled in a tornado.

Son #2, my money monger, appeared clutching a heavy metal box in his arms.

"You're bringing your cash?" said his older brother.

"If there's a tornado, I want to have money," was the defiant answer.

"My shoes!" wailed my little daughter. I looked at her pudgy bare feet.

"Put these on," I said quickly, giving her some sneakers, realizing she'd need foot covering for the gravelly surface of the crawl space.

"I don't want those!" Sheesh, three year-olds can be stubborn. "I want my pink shoes!"

Thank goodness the pink shoes were just in the other room. We weren't breaking any records for getting down to safety in quick order.

Finally, we were all down in the crawl space.

"What about Ruby?" asks one of my sons, referring to our dog.

I pause, mentally picturing if I could muscle the 70 lb. chocolate labrador retriever myself. I'm sure she wouldn't go willingly.

"She'll be okay," I assured him. He looked doubtful.

We settled in with our blankets and snacks, the guitars safely leaned against old boxes filled with yearbooks and trinkets from years past. With the wind howling around us, we felt as safe and cozy as we could in this dank, cramped space.

The lights flickered, and went out. The darkness was the kind so thick you could cut through it. We all gasped a little bit, and my daughter began to cry. But we had our flashlight, and it clicked on and made us feel safe again. I looked around. I had my essentials. In the fear just before our descent to safety, I hadn't even thought of my "prized" possessions: my laptop where I write and my new expensive camera. I had kept my babies close, and we were safe, waiting for the wind to stop howling so we could come out of our underground bunker again.

My son picked up his guitar and started playing. We all recognized the tune he was playing: Under Pressure, by Queen and David Bowie.

Well, why not?


[Excerpt from Under Pressure, 1981, Queen and David Bowie]

Pressure pushing down on me
Pressing down on you no man ask for
Under pressure - that burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets
Um ba ba be
Um ba ba be
De day da
Ee day da - that's o.k.
It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming 'Let me out'
Pray tomorrow - gets me higher
Pressure on people - people on streets
Day day de mm hm
Da da da ba ba
O.k.
Chippin' around - kick my brains around the floor
These are the days it never rains but it pours

Dear Tooth Fairy: You’re Fired!

It was early morning, and I was awakened by the sound of my son sniffling.

“Dad,” he said, hiccupping between sobs, “the tooth fairy didn’t come!”

Luckily, I was turned away from my disappointed son, so he didn’t see me clench my fists and mouth the words dammit dammit dammit.

I completely forgot. And it wouldn’t be so bad, except that I always completely forget. This is our third child who has lost teeth, and I—excuse me, the tooth fairy, has made each and every one of them cry.

“Awww, buddy, don’t worry,” says my husband. “Why don’t you go down and watch some cartoons for a little while?”

Leave it to my husband. In these situations, he is calm and knows how to deflect attention to, in this case, SpongeBob. He and I just steal glances at each other and just shake our heads. We are hopeless, and we know it.

Twenty years from now, we’ll be having a big family dinner together, and our four adult children will go around the dinner table and recollect the many many wrongs done to them by us, their parents. It’s a day I will try to prepare for, because I know it’s coming.

“They could never get it right. Once, they told me the tooth fairy didn’t come because she was on vacation.”

“They told you that? Mom told me that my friend got more money from the tooth fairy because he lived on the north side of town, and the south side fairy paid less!”

“Remember that one time when she told us the tooth fairy probably got laid off because of the economy?”

I hope that some day, they can laugh about it, and forgive their Distracted Mommy. But I know in their heads, they’ll be promising to themselves that they’ll never make the same mistakes I did.

Under cover of the SpongeBob theme song being played in the next room, my husband sneaks into my son’s room and shuffles around.

“Well, no wonder!” he says loudly, so my son can hear. “The tooth fairy DID come! You just didn’t see it because she left the money for you on the dresser, not under your pillow where you were looking!”

My son runs up the stairs, and his eyes sparkle brightly at the sight of the crisp dollar bill on his dresser. His faith in all things mythical has been restored.

And I let out a huge sigh of relief. We have the most distracted, forgetful and inconsistent tooth fairy in the neighborhood. Maybe her wings are broken. She certainly didn’t graduate summa cum laude from Tooth Fairy University—she probably didn’t graduate at all.

If it weren’t for her calm and trustworthy assistant, she would’ve been fired long ago.