riding the storm out

My brother and I spent part of this evening preparing for a supposedly large storm to come through later tonight. This involved taking a multitude of vehicles into town (two miles to town over gravel roads, plus another mile of town roads that would be better off as gravel - they're disintegrating, the town can't afford to fix them, and also can't afford to gravel them instead, so you end up driving across incredibly deep potholes) - my father's shop is on the western edge of town, and is large enough inside that, if we sacrifice some machinery, we can put the family vehicles inside to protect them from hail.

What inevitably happens after preparing for a hailstorm is that you avoid all hail. So after we shuttled my Rav4, my Sunfire, Michael's Tahoe, Michael's Silverado, my grandma's car, and the car that Michael and I both used in high school up to the shop, it appears that we're not going to get any real storm at all. Sigh. However, this gives me added incentive to get around to selling my Sunfire - the fact that we usually have so many cars sitting in the driveway (Michael and I each have two, plus my mom's car, my dad's truck, and the untold plethora of cars/trucks that Michael has sitting in the far backyard) is a little ridiculous. But to steal a quote from some dude that my dad and I listened to on his Sirius 'Blue Collar Comedy' channel - 'we're not white trash, we're white clutter'. None of my cars are on blocks, and we have enough gravel/pavement to park all of them off the grass - but I still think that it's time for me and my Pontiac to part ways.

Despite the futility of our endeavors, it wasn't a bad idea. Our area has had some extensive hail damage in the past, as evidenced by the number of new roofs in town that have been paid for by hail insurance payouts. And my friend Katie remembers the time that her dad was practically dancing for joy as he watched a hailstorm destroy his crops, because the insurance payout was worth more than the effort of harvesting and selling them. Since I would *not* be dancing for joy if my Rav4 was destroyed by hail, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

I spent the rest of the day taking care of paperwork, paying bills, playing on the internet, visiting my grandma, and generally being lazy. After I collect my car tomorrow, I'm going to go to Des Moines and write for awhile - and then meet up with the aforementioned Katie, who is in town for a wedding this weekend. So whether I get any real writing done remains to be seen, but hanging out with Katie will be delightful. Unless, of course, the storm hits tomorrow morning instead, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens.