While some of you were digging your way out of a winter’s worth of snow yesterday, we in the southeastern states were battling the first badass thunderstorms of the spring season*. I was at work when the first one started. I haven’t mentioned this in a while, but I work in a POD, which is really just a large metal trailer. I was here alone because all the sensible people left right after the final bell to beat the storm, so I was a little nervous. Maybe it was my imagination, but I think the building actually shook a little, and when I walked over to a window to have a look outside, a gust of wind picked that moment to slam into that particular side of the pod, and I could actually feel it through the glass. So there I am, standing in the middle of the room freaking out inside, when the double outside doors flew open and wind, rain, and lima bean-sized hail began pouring into the room. Into the library. All over the books.
For one brief moment I panicked, and then I sprang into action. I threw myself into the doorway, grabbed first one door, then the other, and pulled against the wind with every fiber of my being until the doors were latched. I was drenched, as was our floor, but thankfully the shelves protected the books in the path of the gush. One small title that was on display on top of a shelf, a biography of John McCain, got soaked and is now recovering under a vent. I dried out just in time to get wet again on the way to my car, but I left feeling very heroic. I saved the books from the scary storm! I am a superhero! I am a protector of libraries! Now if only I had a cape….
And there may be a cape in my future, thanks to Prizey and
Actually, in Mia’s future, and it’s not really a cape so much as a very cool, very stylish kids’ poncho. But if my kid’s imagination is nearly as grand as my own she will totally call it a cape, and that makes me want to win one even more.
one small corner of the universe 
Same storm. Just imagine standing between two lines of cars populated by distressed grandparents, angry soccer moms, and oblivious high school students all trying to pick up their middle school car riders. The line moves not. The rain cascades down to the point that I wonder if this is what it is like to be at the bottom of Niagra Falls. The car rider line is still not moving and I am now battling the wind for possession of my umbrella. The wind gets its way. My umbrella is wrenched from my hands, skips across an unnecessarily large SUV (thus making Angry Soccer Mom #900 even more angry), and lands in the ditch. I do not retrieve it as the winds blow it down the road. Then it hits me: the umbrella made its escape. Why can’t I? When will this car rider line begin to move? Why are all the students just hanging around the entrance? They aren’t even trying to stay dry!
Eventually, they all left and so did I. Soaked. All the way to my underwear. There’s no cape in my future, but I’m thinking of adding a plastic poncho to my wardrobe.
Thanks for entering the beach towel giveaway, good luck!