John and I have been really into couponing lately. I spent all yesterday morning creating our ‘Xtreme MOJO Couponing’ coupon binder.
I love the idea of couponing, but the action, it’s…awkward.
I can never remember what coupons we have, so inside the store I’m pausing in every aisle, flipping through my stack of coupons, seeing if I have myself a ‘deal.’
Yesterday, when John left for work, I braved Wal Mart. I hate shopping at Wal Mart. It’s chaos. The people are rude and oblivious, and minus the staples, (like a toothbrush) the deals hardly make it worth it. And it’s a lot like Trader Joes, you go in for Baking Soda and 250$ later you leave with a trunk full of European Christmas cookies. Those 1$ things add up. Quick.
But we had a coupon.
Last month we got new floors. They’re beautiful, and they’re wood, so they spot. We found a Swiffer specifically for wood floors. The thing is 20$. Ok, that’s not THAT much, but it’s enough where we paused for a month before buying it.
John found a coupon for 5$ off a Swiffer Wood Floor Kit. And it expired yesterday.
I almost forfeit the 5$ and went to Target, but, luckily, I had one other reason to brave Wal Mart. Every year with John’s family we do Secret Santa. My pick this year had a list of four items. Three from Wal Mart.
It was raining when I left the house, but only lightly drizzling when I went inside Wal Mart. I spent 15 minutes looking at make up that I had coupons for. Nothing was a deal. Another 15 minutes trying to find a Gas X freebie that I found on Krazy Koupon Lady (a joke stocking stuffer for John). No dice.
Another 20 minutes trying to find the Secret Santa gift. Is there a difference between dish cloths and dish towels?
More time finding a 75 cent box of pasta (thanks, coupon) and finally, the darn Swiffer.
By the time I got out of there I was beyond irritated and my arms hurt from trying to keep my sideways drifting cart straight. It was pouring.
Now soaking wet AND annoyed I skipped all the rest of my errands and drove home. The back way was starting to flood. The rain was coming down in sheets.
I don’t mind weather. I’ve been in some serious snow storms, I was in Missouri when they had a day with the most tornado touchdowns ever recorded. I drove in a white-out in Massachusetts to try to get my friend to the shut down airport. I drove in a dust storm with my mom in the middle of Texas.
Driving home last night, the song on the radio was interrupted by a warning. A tornado warning. In Dorchester county.
We live in Berkeley County, just east of Dorchester. But a tornado WARNING means that there IS A TORNADO. And I don’t think tornados know to stay within their county lines.
I drove the rest of the way home on edge, turning on the news as I walked in the door. Yep. The weather man had interrupted the regular program. A polygon showed the areas in danger. We were just outside of it.
In Missouri, when there was a tornado, we got in the basement. I sat on the couch (with a calming glass of wine), wondering what I would do. The closet? The bathroom? Surely not the living room, I thought, looking at the 12 foot windows.
By 9 p.m. the warning was cancelled, but a watch was in full effect for all the surrounding counties, including ours.
I was in Starbucks studying for a test that record touchdown day in Missouri. It was sunny outside. Then it was emerald green. With sparkling hail pinging the windows. Then they shut all the doors saying there was a tornado warning. I just stared at the large Starbuck’s windows wondering what we would do. When the radio confirmed it had skipped Columbia (the hilly geography and origin of the tornado, which tend to follow a north east path, had saved the school for decades), we went back to studying.
It’s a weird feeling–tornado anxiety. The likelihood of them forming without warning, pretty slim today. But at night, with the weather channel on and rain whipping around your house, that train you know comes every day at 10 pm, makes you jump. They say tornadoes sound like trains.
That’s what I was counting on, back in 2005, driving from the St. Louis airport after spring break with my roommate. The radio interrupted the song to say that there was a tornado warning in some county. Some county we had just passed the sign for. It was 2 am. We drove in silence the hour and a half to school, two California girls who had just spent a week in the mildest climate on the continent, driving blindly down a four lane highway, hoping to outrun a funnel that we would probably only hear. The moment we pulled into our parking lot, the hail hit.
Thinking of that last night, I felt a little better. I was home, warm, I had more wine and some jalapeno Mac n Cheese, and it was just a watch. I switched the channel to watch Modern Family and wrap some Christmas presents. If they changed it to a warning, I’d move this party into the closet. Or strap myself to an exposed pipe, like they did in Twister. Yeah, I got this.
MoJo Adventures 