Disaster Preparedness Training, part IV--You've got to be kidding me!

I really thought my THIRD Disaster Preparedness Training would be my last. I mean, how unprepared for disaster could one family be?

You know the answer because you know the writer of this blog is, ahem, a bit challenged in the area of emergencies. Calm, cool and collected I'm not.

Take, for instance, our first summer of wedded bliss. In the heat of a July Texas night, I was awakened around midnight to the sound of gunfire. Did you hear me? Gunfire in our new little suburban area. I was flat on my back in bed one moment and in one amazingly athletic move, had catapulted myself over John, grabbed the phone, poised my index finger over the 9 button and shouted, "I'm calling 911!!!" John, ever poised in the face of his lunatic wife, did what every calm, cool and collected newlywed husband should do...he started laughing uncontrollably.

When he was once again calm enough to speak, he said, "Jill, it's July 4th."

"Those are fireworks."

So today...I was driving down a busy street in our small town at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, apparently for the first time ever. All of a sudden (because these things always happen suddenly), a loud siren is heard and I see a huge firetruck coming toward me from the opposite direction (in his lane, I might add). I quickly swerve to the right lane and pull over and stop.

I'm proud to say that it only took several seconds for me to notice that the firetruck's lights weren't on, it was in no particular hurry, no other cars were pulling over and stopping and, most importantly, our city's civil defense siren comes on every Wednesday at 1 p.m. and is apparently located on this busy street.

Let's recap: my kids don't know how to survive a tornado, I don't know how to properly treat a fainting person and I'm confused by loud noises. The common denominator?

Me!