Thank The Gummi Mary, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom Did Not Tarry

Whee doggies! We had a rip-roarin' storm tear through here this afternoon. I had barely returned from The Devil's Playground, all by my lonesome, bags to carry before there was any rest for the weary.

As I pushed my cart to T-Hoe, I saw many flashes of lightning on The Devil's horizon. I still managed to stop for a beverage and engage in a lovefest with my sweet, sweet Juno and give her a handful of cat kibble, and carry in my purchases before the sky began to fall. Wow. I have not seen a storm of this magnitude for several years. Perhaps because I am usually ensconced in my dark basement lair.

The living room grew dark as night, even though the shades were open. The sky turned from dark to darker to darkest. The dusk-to-dawn light came on. The DISH satellite went off. Of course my internet was also out of whack. Rain slooshed down in a curtain. A curtain that was being pulled by an invisible stagehand from south to north. The birdbath filled up. Poolio was near to overflowing. He looked like an infinity Poolio. Lightning crashed with less than a second before the thunder boomed. I daresay there might be limbs down somewhere on the Mansion grounds.

Thank the Gummi Mary I had warned my mom about DISH behavior in a deluge. We have not had an interruption in our service for at least six months. But this storm was a doozy. Mom said that when she turned her TV on when she got home from church, the screen said the signal was lost. She left it alone, and it came back after a while, just like I had told her it would. Yay, Mom! You didn't fiddle about with that remote and get things out of kilter.

While I was a bit upset that I had neither TV nor internet as a reward for all my hard work procuring provisions and hauling them in and putting them away...I was very grateful that I kept my electricity. So...after the DISH receiver decided to shut itself off and turn itself back on, I was able to watch some shows I had DVRed while waiting to get my signal back. Once the signal was back, I figured internet would return, and all I had to do was ascend the stairs (oh, how I miss The Pony!) to finagle my Sprint card thingamabob to work again. Mission accomplished.

That lightning was a bit frightening. I swear a bolt hit in the back yard. Thank the Gummi Mary it did not hit our garage, and cause the door to go up and down uncontrollably, or strike the house, and make nails shoot out of the drywall. I'm not imagining things. This is not one of those times I'm being like Meryl Streep as Aunt Josephine worried about her deathtrap of a cottage perched high upon a cliff overlooking Lake Lachrymose in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. (I figure if I use that reference a couple times a week, readers will finally do a Google search for that clip to see what I am talking about.) No, that garage door/shooting nails thing really happened to one of my students in Cuba, Missouri, many years ago. At least her house didn't burn down from an afternoon cigarette dumped into the evening trash and set out in the garage with the night's garbage. Not on a first-name basis with Lady Luck, those Cuba students. Or maybe they WERE, because nobody was hurt in either instance.

Maybe Farmer H should keep his eye out for some lightning rods at the auction.