Habits and Sirens

The first week we moved here, the tornado siren went off. We all trooped down into the basement, while my mom called our older neighbors to be sure they were in their basements too. The first person she called informed her, that here we had a tornado test every first Wednesday of the month.

Seems like that's the kind of information you tell your new neighbors before Wednesday.

And, true to her word, every first Wednesday of the month we get a tornado test. And every time, I tense up until I can remember what day it is. And every time Holt and Mouse come running in the living room to ask if it's a test.

It's hard to break a habit.

See, we used to live in Louisville, KY, where tornadoes were about as frequent as sneezing. When we lived in KY, my dad was going to seminary so we lived in seminary housing. Otherwise known as an apartment complexes with kitchens the size of postage stamps.

Which means, we didn't have basements. So, when there was a tornado, our entire building worth of people would go out (into the hail and rain) to get to the door that would let us into the building basement, that had like 6 inches of standing water and mold on the walls. 

It was always a party.

Then, there were the times I would be at school when they went off, and we would have to go in the hallways with our heads between our knees.

I hated that even worse than the standing water and mold.

When we moved here and those sirens went off the first week, it was habit to run to the basement. It's still habit now to automatically tense up when I hear sirens. 

(Know why I'm posting this today?? Cause it's the first Wednesday of the month and Mouse just ran in here frantically asking if it was a test).

Old habits die hard.