THE SKY IS FALLING!

I'm going to visit my brother and his family in upstate New York -- NOT that FAKE "upstate" where everyone in Syracuse calls themselves "upstate New Yorkers" (for the love of gawd, look at a MAP, you dumbasses); the REAL upstate New York near Plattsburgh, about an hour from Montreal.  I'll be staying for a couple of nights, and there's one thing I really hate about sleeping (in general, not just at someone's house): Being awakened by thunder.

I mean, it's no secret that I am not a thunder fan when in a house, in a quiet building (like a school where there's no consistent white noise), or caught outside.  I actually like that shit in a big building like a mall, a building with constant white noise like a restaurant, and if I am in a car.  Yup, I'll drive head on into that bad boy like a storm chaser on steroids.

However, I despise waking up like that.  (It works with errant fire alarms, too -- I'll jump out of my bed and my skin if a loud, screeching, danger-signaling alarm pierces the middle of my sleep patterns.)  So, I am relieved to see that the weather for my stay in upstate (that honest to goodness upstate) New York looks like clear sailing.  Why?

Because tonight my brother and his family are getting whacked with terrible storms.  (Yeah, yeah, yeah, that means they're on their way here, too.  I'll worry about that in a couple of hours.)  My brother posts on social media that they're under a tornado watch.  This is serious stuff.  At least, it's supposed to be, and, for the most part, everyone is reacting relatively appropriately; even I am ... at first.  "Stay safe!"  (No need to add, "Thank you for getting that crap out of the way -- keep it out of there for my visit!")  Other people chime in with "Be careful," and "Get in the basement," and good advice like that.

Then, someone posts something about sharks.  Watch out for sharks.  Yup, a great cultural reference to the horrible yet popular Sharknado films (all bazillion of them).  Another person tells my brother not to worry because they're too far from the ocean for Sharknado to strike.  True.

He does, though, live right near Lake Champlain, and Lake Champlain is home to the mythical Champ (Champy?), cousin of the Lock Ness Monster.  Of course, this makes me post about Champnado, and the thread continues to disintegrate after that.

I shouldn't make light of it.  I haven't heard from my brother since his post, and the radar shows that they're out of the worst of it.  Hudson, Troy, and Albany -- not so much.  The storm is huge, a long and damaging line of severe thunderstorms, spawning tornado-like conditions in areas, and tearing right across the Northeast.  It's blasting Bennington all the way to Norwich, VT, and it's coming into western Massachusetts as I type this. 

There will be no sleep for me until it has passed.  I'd rather stay up late and play games on my phone while battening down the hatches (often hiding in the basement or the bathroom depending on the microburst factor of the radar) because losing sleep while being annoyed by the storm is better than jumping out of skin and sleep with a sudden heart attack as the sky crashes down. 

Yup, just call me Chicken Little.  Doesn't bother me.  Chicken Little will have great adventures on the road to Plattsburgh, too, but, kiddos: Thunderstorms are NOT going to be part of it, so pass that along to the weatherman when you see him, or I swear I will run around screaming. "The sky is falling!  THE SKY IS FALLING!"