F E L I N E R S

I experienced my first tornado warning yesterday. It was shit scary!

After a day of ‘frolicking’ at the St Louis Mills (a huge gigantic mall which has nothing much in it), I met Peter at Westport Plaza for dinner.

I got the shuttle to pick me up from the mall. On my way to Westport Plaza, Larry the shuttle driver said to me, “It has been a hot day but look at the clouds over there. It looks like its gonna rain…” He pointed at the sky.

“Yea…according to the weather forecast there’ll be some rain over the weekend,” I said, still gazing at the sky. I’m quite amazed at how sunny it is on one side of the highway and cloudy, if not stormy on the other.

The rest of the journey Larry told me about his new girlfriend of 5 weeks and how he finds big city dwellers less friendly compared to people in smaller towns. I agreed and traded some stories on my experiences with New Yorkers and KLites as oppose to residents of St Louis haha.

I tipped him a dollar and hurried to meet Peter in Starbucks.

We decided to go to Marciano’s for dinner and I fussed with my newly-bought camera while Peter ordered. We sat outside and did the usual I-update-you-on-my-day and vice versa.

After ten minutes, I noticed the unusual strong wind. I held on to my bag and my camera and at the same times murmured to Peter that “things are gonna start flying around”. Of course I said it half-heartedly and didn’t expect flying chairs and glasses at all, especially when Peter said, “You’re probably not used to it but it’ll be over in a minute.”

Next thing I know he grabbed his beer and my wine glass and was headed for the door saying, “Omigod sweetie, go into the restaurant!” What kind of a spouse is he!!! In a crisis like that he thought about his beer first wey!

The electricity was disconnected. Some people stopped eating and started talking about the situation. Some made phone calls. We were quite shaken but too hungry to care haha. After the meal, I stepped outside to have a smoke as the wind seemed to have died down. It was then I noticed the sirens and Peter came out saying, “I’m gonna get the manager and ask her what’s happening.”

The moment he went in I heard one of the waitress said, “The siren is on, I’m scared. There’s gonna be a tornado.”

Seconds later he came out to get me. “Stop smoking and get in here sweetie. I’m telling you, get in here right now!”

He got so nervous that we ended up giving 60 dollars to our waitress without waiting for the check to arrive. He told her that we’ll come and get the change from her tomorrow. We were told that the parking garage in the basement is the safest place to be, should a tornado hits us.

So we went and camp in the basement for half an hour with a bunch of other people who seemed fairly relax about the whole thing. A lady told us that “nothing severe has happened in this area” and even joked about “flying Dorothy”.

Andrew told me he heard on the news that the wind was going at 80mph and some roof at the St Louis-Lambert International airport was blown off.