Frankenstorm Is a Great Opportunity to Take a Much-Needed Hurrication

Just before the start of my second semester of college in New Orleans, of Louisiana fame, my dad, who had driven all the way from New Jersey with me, thus preventing me from listening to all the dance hall reggae I so desperately crave on a cross-country drive, had conversation with a scabrous Marriott bartender that went something like this:

Dad: So, this storm that's coming...

Scabrous, one-eyed, peg-legged bartender: Pshaw! Storms are for wimps.


Dad: But do you think it will hit?

Bartender: No. Look, pal, you seem like a real worrier. Why don't you and your clearly underage son have a few old fashioneds and go watch Revenge of the Sith on pay-per-view, like a couple of nerds.

The next day, New Orleans Mayor Ray "I'm an incompetent huckster" Nagin ordered a city-wide evacuation on the eve of Hurricane Katrina and my dad was all, "Let's gtfo," which we did. We stayed in Pensacola for a week, where everyone we ran into was, you know, super sorry but also really, really happy that yet another hurricane didn't destroy their community. We surfed the storm surge, relaxed on the beach, ate really good friend seafood, and went to the movies every night. It was a gas. I've never bonded so closely with my dad. It was the first time either of us tried sushi, and we were all, "Ew, eel!" together. That's quite a moment for a father and son to share, and it would have never happened had we not decided, wisely, to take what is known in the watery corners of the world, as a hurrication.

Now, I know what you're thinking — "But Doug, Hurricane Katrina was a BIG DEAL and lots of families lost their homes. Didn't your live-in paramour's family lose all of their tangible remembrances? Aren't you being a little cavalier about this whole storm of the half century business, hmm?" Maybe your fear that you, too, may lose everything in the upcoming Frankenstorm and that nobody in Louisiana will feel sorry for you is also preventing you from seriously considering a hurrication, but I must tell you that this is a mistake. You should totally skip town and go somewhere you've always wanted to go, like Chattanooga, which has a really efficient and nominally free (social contract dictates that you donate at least a dollar, but still) electric bus, or Asheville, which has fields redolent of marijuana.

Hurricane Sandy and the other storm systems that will probably sewn onto its monstrous body is going to be a doozy. CNN said so. Everyone on Twitter is freaking out. North Carolina, New Jersey, and Connecticut have already pretty much ordered mandatory hurrications, and Andrew Cuomo is putting the kibosh on New York's public transportation. However, short of battening the hatches, there's not a whole lot you can do but get out of a storm's way, and, with the high probability that you may score a few days off of work, you should do just that because you owe it to yourself to see the bright lights of Mobile, Alabama's parochial skyline. Or you can fucking go to Disney World, you know? It's empty this time of year. You can pick up some drugs, blow down to Orlando, and spend four days lounging at the Polynesian Resort at a steep discount and just riding all the colors of the monorail. On LSD. Disney World also has mouse-shaped pancakes that will make your life worth living.

The point is, storms like this are freaks of nature. They come out of nowhere and there isn't a thing you can really do but a) hopefully have insurance and b) wait. You should take a clue from the strange weather and be spontaneous. Otherwise, you'll be stuck inside reading Lafcadio Hearn's Chita by candlelight and thinking about playing Stratego alone. Like a loser.

The Best Panicked Tweets About Hurricane Sandy [Business Insider]

Sandy strengthens, East Coast braces for possible ‘superstorm' [CNN]