We Interrupt This Storm to Bring You Family Values

I don’t know about you, but over the past two weeks I’ve pretty well abandoned any quaint notions I may have had about moving to the Pacific Northwest.

“But it’s so green there!” Who cares? The insides of my shoes are turning green.

My back yard keeps flooding through the garage, despite the hundreds of gallons of rain water I’ve collected in trash cans and discretely dumped in my neighbor’s back yard. I’m beginning to suspect he may have arrived at a similar drainage system.

The inclement capper came Sunday night when a call to my brother’s house was interrupted by a tornado tearing down his street. You probably heard about it. It’s the same one where some would-be Mary Poppins was lifted by her umbrella and flew through the air for a thrilling 72 feet. County officials are out there now trying to assess an amusement tax on her.

My sister-in-law called back to say there were more than 50 trees down, cars crushed, etc., and that she was going to be interviewed over the phone soon by Orange County’s plucky little cable TV news channel.

We switched it on to find their plucky little newscaster in the middle of interviewing some weather expert over the phone. It was going something like this:

“Would you say it was a tornado or a funnel cloud?”

“Well, a funnel cloud becomes a tornado when it touches the ground.”

“So it was a funnel cloud?”

“Until it touched the ground.”

“What was your name again?”

Throughout the conversation, the newscaster kept nervously darting about in his seat, as if the director were shooting rubber bands at his head. It was very distracting. Finally they put my sister-in-law, Christie, on the line, and the reporter started in with more questions: “So would you say it was a funnel cloud or a tornado?”

Every so often there would be a small disturbance on the line, which was actually me calling her number to see what the call-waiting blip would sound like on the air. When Christie was done talking, the newscaster turned to the camera with a serious face and said, “That was Vanessa in Lake Forest.” The same guy was still on the air the next morning, so it’s possible they never let him sleep.

I tried unsuccessfully to get through to their phone line a couple of times, since I felt they could benefit from my perspective: “You know, the last thing I saw were these huge leathery bat wings.”

“So you’re saying what you saw was a huge bat?”

“Yes, until it touched the ground.”

We’re going just a little stir crazy around my house. Last night the TV screen, I swear, also yielded a Jimmy Stewart Western where Jimmy is fending off bad guys with an accordion, which winds up catching fire. That seemed downright normal compared to the ways we’re passing time around here, like snorkeling for lawn furniture.

You know things are getting closed-in and dull when folks start suggesting, “Hey, let’s try making the jigsaw puzzle with the picture facing down this time!”

Maybe this is a rain-imposed preview of that “cocooning” trend I hear we’re all supposed to be doing in the ‘90s. As I understand it, cocooning means that, rather than rushing about everywhere, we instead make our home a more nurturing, rewarding and culturally invigorating place to be, which we accomplish by renting “Batman Returns” on video tape.

It’s great to come back to solid American Values, but there’s something missing here. Just the other day I was talking about this with a friend who’s fond of the concept, and I asked him, “Doesn’t going into a cocoon imply that you’re going to engage in a metamorphosis while there?”

“Yes, it does,” he answered. “I’m metamorphosing into a self-centered, beer-drinking TV recluse, and so should you.”

This could be good for me, because staying home means never having to pay for valet parking, unless my landlord comes up with a new profit angle. I hate valet parking. I have an absolute phobia about it and will park blocks away from a place rather than submit to it.

Some of this is based on reason: At a time when people spend thousands on alarms and such to keep people out of their cars, you’re supposed to just hand your keys over to complete strangers? To Clearasil addicts? To people in a job with no prospects, short of the prospect of stripping your gears? A friend of mine used to work as a valet at the Newporter Inn, and you wouldn’t want to hear the stories.

The bad thing about cocooning is I’m equally scared of video rentals. I don’t really understand the process and have only attempted it a few times. The first time happened before I got a credit card, without which I found I might as well have been trying to rent Air Force One. Even the offer of a $200 cash deposit wouldn’t pry a tape from them. They require a credit card.

I suspect this is so because they’re waiting for the day when you run for President of the United States (at which time, if elected, you can even send Air Force One on missions to find your dog’s lost squeeze toy). Then concerned parties will call up your credit card records and confront you at press conferences:

“What was your intent in renting ‘Debbie Does Just About Everybody’ on Sept. 7, 1983?”

“I was just trying to see how different people in the world got along.”

I hope this rain lets up soon.