[ WP ] A happy story about the end of the world

The adults had become nervous and silent, jittering in their seats worse than the kids that sat beside them. The waiting room had a standard dentist's office waiting room look, with plain brown walls and uncomfortable green seats. The familiarity of the situation was something that Dan had n't pictured when he had thought of the end of the world. He was a sucker for explosions, meteors, and general mayhem, and the reality of the situation was so pedestrian that he was a little disappointed. Sure, the Earth would eventually become a Hellish landscape with storms so fierce that they would make Katrina look like a light breeze, but the climate was sure taking its sweet time getting there. Not that he was complaining, obviously. It was just that a small part of him had never gotten over his boyhood fantasies, and he had expected something *epic*. 
 
 He just had not expected it to be so bureaucratic. He woke up to the alerts blaring through any available speaker - the T.V. that he had turned off, his phone, the microwave for God's sake - the generic newscaster voice saying that this was not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill, and he went to wake up his kids. He was already thinking of safe places to hide from what he had assumed was a tornado, when the voice elaborated.'Please evacuate. Get to the nearest launch pad. Launch pad locations are on the official white house website.'' and so on. He opened his daughter's door to find them already awake, hiding in the closet. Gloria, the eldest, was consoling her younger sister, Alexa. 
 
 `` Come on girls. We've got to get out of here.'' 
 
 `` What's going on?'' 
 
 He looked into their naive young faces, and he did n't have the heart to tell them that he wished he could ask somebody that very same question. 
 
 `` There must be a storm coming. We've got to get somewhere safe.'' He said it halfheartedly, and he could tell that they were n't satisfied with the answer, but they got out of the closet. He forced them to get ready just as if they were going to school, while he pulled up the white house website on his phone. The home page of the website had been replaced by a paragraph of text under large, bold letters saying'Climate Worsening - Evacuate immediately'. The text gave a simple run down of the plan from there, with a link to a map with launch site locations. He started to pack his things. 
 
 The nearest rocket to him was a couple of hours away, in Texas. He had driven the kids, who fell back to sleep almost immediately, laying on the pillows that they had brought along. If they had been older and less sleepy, they would have seen the implication behind all of the things packed in the car with them, but as it was they just thought that they were having a sleepover in a bunker, or some other place safe from a humongous storm. Dan brainstormed ways to tell them the truth as he drove. They were pretty adventurous girls, and he did n't think it would be too hard to sell them on what was about to happen. 
 
 So then they sat, in a waiting room full of similar families. Kids and adults alike out of the loop, not even aware until now that the United States had this sort of technology, much less that they would need it any time soon. It was getting to be about daylight, and the girls woke up. 
 
 `` Is this the shelter Daddy?'' Gloria looked around the room in disappointment. She, like Dan, was often disappointed with the reality of things. 
 
 `` No girls. It turns out that this storm is too big. We are not going to a shelter.'' 
 
 `` Well then why did you drag us out of bed?'' Alexa said, still a little groggily. 
 
 `` Well... Have you ever wanted to ride in a spaceship?'' 
 ___ 
 
 /r/Periapoapsis for other stuff by me, the redundant, tautological, Periapoapsis 
 

