The day all started normally, I rose from my slumber, and dragged my exhausted feet into the kitchen for my annual bowl of Wheaties. I heard my brothers’ footsteps on his ascent of the stairs.

My mom came striding into the kitchen to prepare herself for another grueling day at her job. At the time, my mother was currently employed at what used to be the YMCA in New Richmond. That building is now the Centre.

“Morning,” she said in an unusually chipper mood. “Does anybody want to come with me to work today,” She asked?

Now usually, I’d reply “no”, but today I was also in a great mood so I replied, “Yes”
My mother looked a little surprised at my answer.

“That’s great,” she said. “But your father and Brayden will be joining us a little later.”

“Alright,” I replied fast to avoid a prolonged discussion. Shortly after I was done enjoying my bowl of Wheaties in quiet, my mom rounded me up and stuck me in the Ford Expedition.

The trip was unbearably boring and down-pouring like a Niagara Falls from the clouds. Those weathermen couldn’t predict rain on a day it was raining. Stupid weather said it’s going to be a sunny day. Yeah, Right. I sat there in silence listening to the raindrops pounding on the windows. The car ride dragged on, and on, and on.

I spirits lifted as the soaked truck pulled in to the puddle-filled parking lot. The rain stopped for just enough time that my mom and I could slip into the YMCA building without getting drenched.

“I’m going to work out now, so stay here, and wait for Brayden and your father,” she said while making her way down the polished hallway. I sat there and began to wonder “why the heck did I come with.” I saw the TV mounted on the wall to the left of me. I made my way over to the dusty TV. The TV looked as if it hadn’t been used since my dad was born. It was too high for me to reach, so I dragged a chair underneath the ancient artifact from Indiana Jones.

I reached to the ceiling and the closer I got, the more my body resisted. I got closer, closer, closer, until I heard the familiar noise of the TV spark to life. BZZZZZ, the TV was now active and ready for some extreme cartoon watching.

Then the worst thing that could possibly happen, happened. Some of my fellow readers might say I fell off the chair. Oh no, It was a lot worse than that, my little brother walked in.

He got up on the same chair and changed the channel to Nickelodeon. I mean come on; this kid walks in like he owns the place and changes the channel to some stupid kids show. I was so steamed at him. I marched over and stopped inches from his face. I could smell the play dough on his breath. Why do little do kids even eat play dough? Must be some sort of gene mutation or something.

“What’s your problem huh, I was enjoying my day until you decided to poke your head in and make my life miserable,” I said in a loud whisper

“So,” he replied and went over to my seat and sat there. You know what else he did, the little ruffian decided he was hungry and started to chow down on my crackers. My Crackers! Who does that! This sent me over the edge. I stormed out of the room and out the front doors out into the rainy weather. But this weather didn’t seem the same. From the time my mom and I arrived, it was hotter and muggier than I remembered.

I thought it was nothing. I ran for the front doors to get out of this terrible weather. This was the beginning of “battle of brothers” part two. Now it was my chance to take back what was rightfully mine, peace and quiet.

I stormed into the room looking all high and mighty and stopped. My dad was changing the channel to what looked to be the weather station.

“This is a warning,” the weather man said,”if you’re in these highlighted counties; get to somewhere below ground within the next thirty minutes.” Without warning the lights powered down with that familiar BEEEEOOOO noise. We were left in complete blackness. I made my way towards the window to be able to see again.

All of a sudden, the lights powered back up with a loud swoop noise. The loud noise made me jump into the air a couple of feet.

“We are closing down for today. Everybody please make their way to the exits in an orderly,” she said. This woman looked tired and annoyed by all these problems she experienced today. I saw my mom striding down the hallway to greet us. About time we can get out of here.

We all hopped into the Expedition to make are way home, until my dad said something that would ruin my entire day.

“Let’s stop at Bernards and look at some used cars,” he said, despite heavy opposition. But he was behind the wheel so we had to obey. As we pulled into the car lot, the puddles splashed up at our windows and doors. We were travailing at a maximum speed of a whopping 3 mph.

This was probably the worst day of my life until my mom sounded a little worried and said, “Look at those clouds over there. That one looks a little low to me.” But my dad just shrugged and kept on driving. I decided to take a glance over in that general direction. I saw the most unusual sight; a cloud was reaching towards the ground like ET’s finger trying to “phone home”. My mom started to freak and tried to convince my dad to get the heck out of there. I just started realize what it was.

I thought to myself that these things were only on TV. These things wiped out entire settlements and trailer parks. We weren’t in a trailer park. This was a tornado.

I was only five at the time and tornados to me were like the devil and the pope. This was some serious stuff. And as my serious self, I began to lightly cry, lightly! My mom was still trying to convince my dad to turn around and get out of that death trap.

My dad kept denying the accusation and just kept on looking at cars. I glanced back over and sweet lord, the tornado was ascending back into its puffy home. This was a win for the our family, barely.