We had our first Tornado warning a few days ago, less than two weeks after moving to Texas.

Husband’s mobile phone started screaming like an air-raid siren in the middle of Orange is the New Black. After we got off the floor, we realized it was not a lockdown but an emergency alert, which was a good thing, as Netflix isn’t part of the Emergency Broadcast System.

We changed from pajamas to street clothes right away, filled the bathtub (because that’s what they do in the movies), and gathered the cats into their crate. We then realized that all of our emergency supplies– otherwise known as “camping gear”– were in the little closet out on our balcony, which is not the place you want to go in gale-force winds with lightning strikes happening literally every second. Husband braved it anyway, and before we knew it, we had our whole little family gathered in our bathroom, which is the only windowless room in our second-floor apartment. 

The threat passed quickly, and turned into one spectacular light show of a thunderstorm, during which, the soles of my sixteen-year-old hiking boots literally disintegrated. That had nothing to do with the storm, though… we were just sitting on the couch. 

It’s a good thing we have a big cupboard in the bathroom because from now on, that’s where our camping gear emergency supplies will have to live, along with the cat cage and a new pair of hiking boots.