Surviving a Tornado (and my kids)

I’ve had a very interesting night.

After work, on my drive to pick up the kids from the sitter’s house, I heard there was a tornado watch for most of Southern Ontario, including my area. I wondered if the kids knew.

They sure did.

The car ride home was an unending stream of questions that covered the following: What’s a tornado? What happens if we get a tornado? Where should we go if there’s a tornado? Are we going to get a tornado?

I told them what a tornado is, does, and where to go in the very unlikely event that we get one, hoping that would put an end to the inquiry. I was very, very wrong.

The sitter had told them that if there was a tornado that they would need to go down to her “cold cellar.” My answer was that we would go into the “basement.” Perhaps if I called my basement a cellar and if this space was cold, there would be no problem, but suddenly our lack of a cold cellar made it seem to the children that we were woefully unprepared for tornados (and storing jars of beets) and this only encouraged more questions.

We were going to singing lessons after we checked in at home. Was there a cold cellar at singing lessons? Did they have a basement? How is it possible that our dad seems to know nothing about the architecture of the music school?

Why was it best to go to the basement to be safe from tornados? Where would the house go if a tornado hit it? What would happen if we were on the main floor? How about upstairs?

As flattering as it is that your kids think you know everything about everything, I couldn’t help thinking they have me confused with a structural engineer. And as much as I thought I owed it to them to be patient with their questions, would answering only lead to other rhetorical questions such as what would happen if we were on the roof, in a tree or having ice cream on the trampoline when a tornado hit?

On the drive home from singing, my son said, “Daddy, I’ve never had a tornado (dramatic pause) in my life.”

“Son, (equally dramatic pause) you are six.”

Before we were home I was asked if a tornado was worse than a hurricane. I had gone from structural engineer to part meteorologist, part scientist and I wondered when it would all end.

Are tornados loud? How loud? Are they louder than the airplanes at the air show?

They’re loud, really loud, not sure how they compare to jet airplanes (where exactly do you think I keep the equipment necessary to measure and compare the two?).

What percentage is it that we’ll get a tornado?

Hmm, seems like another way to ask how certain I am in my earlier assertion that there will be no tornados tonight. Do they have any idea how long I spent in school to become a structural engineer/tornado expert/aeronautical sound technician? And besides, I was told there would be no math.

I think their questions finally drained me of all my strength because when my son asked me if we would have to pay for a new house if ours blew away, I caught myself just as I started to explain how it works to file a claim under your home insurance policy...to a six-year-old.

We did get a fairly significant storm, and I am in the basement, but only to give myself a break from the kids.

No tornado, unless you count the one I’m feeling in my head.