By: Angela Gillaspie © May 2003

I rarely get to visit with my two sisters. Living in the same state is nice, but with all the school, church, work, and other activities, Sherri, Traci, and I only see each other about three times a year during holidays or special occasions, namely during summer vacation, Christmas, and Momma's yearly closet cleaning to claim our bridesmaid dresses, Dukes of Hazard T-shirts, and high school annuals.

Recently the planets happened to align and my sisters made plans to attend our first-ever soccer tournament game. I was the coach and my daughter and oldest son were on the team. I bet Traci and Sherri were also curious to see how I - the introverted, bookish, and often-overlooked middle child - handled being the coach.

There was a tornado watch posted day of the game. During springtime here in the southern portion of Tornado Alley, it's normal to cower in the basement a couple of times a week; I respect wall clouds almost as much as I respect duct tape.

A few minutes before game time, the greenish hue of the swirling clouds worried me, so I grabbed my weather radio, put it on alert mode and asked one of the soccer moms to monitor it for me. She nodded and continued trading gelatin recipes and NASCAR anecdotes with the other moms. As I ran my team through some quick warm-up drills, Traci waved at me and helped Sherri unload her son and hubby from the car.

The referee blew the whistle and we gathered at midfield for the pre-game prayer. Right as we kneeled, the tornado sirens went off. "Where's my weather radio?" I yelled to the Soccer Mom Storm Monitor.

"What radio? Oh that. I put it in your car."

Running to the car, I heard several cell phones ringing from the sidelines. Someone shouted, "We're in the path of a tornado!"

I turned back to the field expecting mad chaos, but everyone stood motionless, unsure of what to do. The young referee looked at her watch and then scratched her head. The kids swatted bugs, and the other coaches stared at the referee. Deciding that everyone had temporarily lost their minds, I ran down the field flapping my arms and hollered, "Get in your cars and GO HOME!"

Everyone gawked at me as if I were naked and farting Battle Hymn of the Republic with my armpit.

"A tornado is coming! GO HOME or follow me home!" I screamed. This finally broke everyone's trance and they started to move. I didn't wait to see who went where as I threw equipment and kids into my car. Sherri yelled, "We're going to your house!"

Not five minutes later, my husband and I unloaded our four kids into our small basement playroom. Sherri pulled up in the driveway and she, her husband, son, and Traci joined us in the playroom.

Just so you know, the playroom is an intimate sixteen by fourteen-foot room intended for the kids to sit, study, watch TV, or collect dead spiders. My sisters, brother-in-law, and oldest two sons crammed onto the couch in front of the TV, and my husband stood in the corner snacking on cheese curls and twiddling with his video recorder. My daughter plugged in her radio, rolled her eyes and said, "This stinks."

Sitting next to her, I pulled a dead spider from the baby's hand and said, "I know honey, but we need to be safe."

"No, HE stinks," she pointed to her baby brother.

"Teenky buh!" he replied, pointing to his loaded diaper.

My nephew suddenly bellowed, "GOD IS IN CONTROL!"

The baby cried and my oldest son moaned, "We're all gonna die!"

"We are not! You're too STUPID to die anyway, dufus," my daughter delicately consoled.

Prying my nails from the ceiling I said, "It's OK honey, God is in control and we'll be fine."

"Who stinks?" my other son asked.

"ME!" my brother-in-law answered as he shoved cheese curls up his nose.

Sherri smacked him, "Oh stop it Roger, you're setting a bad example."

"Where's the tornado?" I asked Traci, since she was the only one not involved with stinking, screaming, or snorting cheese curls.

Right as Traci opened her mouth to answer me, it started to hail.

My husband slipped out the door, "Cool! Hail! I'm gonna video tape it."

"Momma! Daddy said a bad word. He said the H-E-E-L word!"

"We're ALL gonna DIE!"

"Nuh huh! God is in control!"

"Can somebody please change that baby's diaper?"

"We're out of cheese curls!"

"Uncle Roger snorted 'em all."

"Oh no! I heard a freight train sound just like they say on TV - it's the tornado!"

"No, it was you - you FARTED!"

"I did NOT! YOU did!"

"Hey! GOD is IN con-TROL!"

I slowly edged toward the door hoping to escape and take my chances in a debris cloud. Traci pumped up the volume on the TV and the meteorologist said the storm was past our city. Only a few limbs were blown down, the hail was the size of marbles, and the power remained on. Too bad I couldn't say the same about my sanity.

We went upstairs to finish our visit with additional cheese curls and promises to get together soon.

It was great seeing everyone, but next time I'd prefer a bigger room and less relative air pressure, if you know what I mean.

Stay tuned for more SouthernAngel's tornadic activities!