Storms

Storms are terrific as long as you don't need to go anywhere, are inside, and the juice stays on. Great for setting the mood for writing.

Of course, if any of those things happens, it becomes a pain in the ass real fast. Right now, power is out to some grids in the area, and it knocked out some traffic lights. People naturally assume that no light means that they don't have to stop in either direction, and they honk at the few people who do the right thing (treat the intersection like it has a stop sign).

My storm memory is thus: when I was living in Botswana, a huge storm whipped up out of nowhere, probably the storm of the century considering that it;s a desert country. Intense wind, huge peals of thunder, and so much hail that it looked like it had snowed recently. I was able to make a hailball from just what was on our front porch.

My school was pretty new, but the builders had gypped the officials by building the surrounding wall with no foundation. So when the wind and hail came, the entire thing toppled over in one piece. For the next few months we had to go to swim lessons with the wall down and passersby looking on (perverts all, I bet, since the school uniform swimwear was very revealing).

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