For those curious, “TEOTWAKI” is prepper-speak for “The End Of The World As We Know It”. It’s usually used in referring to maybe a nuclear war or other sort of disaster which is going to end the world as we know it.
I’m trying to think of what life was like a month ago, when I’d gotten donuts for Matthew’s 21st birthday and when I’d gone the next day for a doctor’s appointment. I’d heard in the news about this virus in China but wasn’t worried.
But in this last month, it’s been like a small storm cloud forming, maybe one you don’t really pay attention to, sort of like a new tropical wave forming in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa.
You might hear about it if you watch The Weather Channel but you don’t really think about it too much, and you go about your business. You go to work, or to school, pick up the kids, go home, grocery shop, make dinner, etc.
Over the next few days you may hear about how that tropical wave has organized into a tropical depression and it’s heading west.
Hmmm, tropical depression now. You wonder if it’s going to get any stronger, or if it’ll peter out, but basically you keep doing what you’re doing, living life as usually.
On the morning news a few days later, the weatherman may say, we have a new tropical storm. It now has a name.
That may be when your ears start perking up, and when you start noticing that there’s a storm out there in the Atlantic, it’s summer, the Atlantic is warm, and that storm is picking up energy.
But you think that maybe it won’t head your way. After all, tropical storms are unpredictable. I mean, there’s a reason why, on The Weather Channel, the meteorologists refer to the “spaghetti model” when they are trying to track a storm.
So you keep going, going on about your life.
Until the words “hurricane warning” come over your radio and the hurricane warning flags raised in the harbor — the black squares framed by red squares — have absolutely nothing to do with the Miami Hurricanes football team.
That’s when you turn on the Weather Channel and see the torrential rain, the palm fronds being tossed around by the wind, the shingles from roofs and the shutters from windows being torn off and flung across driveways and parking lots.
That hurricane, which just a few short weeks ago was a simple tropical wave off the coast of Africa, now has a sustained wind speed of over 200 miles. It’s a Cat 5, and that spaghetti model has the vast majority of those spaghetti noodles right over your home town.
The eye of the storm is headed straight in your direction, and the only safe place to go is to whatever and wherever your hurricane shelter is.
That’s what this last month has been like for me, in a sense. I grew up in Florida. I remember Agnes in 1972; although all I really remember is that one of our croton bushes in the front yard got bent at a weird angle and that Agnes wound up not just in Florida, but all the way up to New York.
I rode out Tropical Storm Kate in a college dormitory in 1985.
I rode out Hurricane Floyd in 1987 in a house in Miami, Florida.
And I rode out the big one, Hurricane Andrew, in 1992 in an apartment in Miami Lakes, Florida.
The arrival of TEOTWAWKI may come with the name of Andrew, or Katrina, or Harvey.
In this case, it has come with the name of COVID-19.
It’s also come with a roller coaster, crashing stock market, with government incompetence, with panic buying, and now with suggested guidelines from the CDC and executive orders from local and state officials, which all add up to: Go home and stay home!
Just about a month ago, that little tropical wave was over in China and just barely making its effect known here in the US.
Now, it is Hurricane COVID-19, or maybe Hurricane Corona, at Category 5.
What do we do now that the hurricane is here, now that the metaphorical 200 mph winds are howling outside?
I’m lucky enough that I am able to work from home. My husband still has to go into an office. My son can do digital learning, and as of this evening, it looks like he’ll have to do it at least until the end of March.
I see reports on Facebook and Twitter about parents attempting to homeschool for the first time and realizing that it’s not as easy as it may look!
The dominoes are continuing to fall. Now it’s the TV industry shutting down production of TV shows, including Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, and Saturday Night Live. The Chicago franchise series has also shut down production.
Is the hurricane going to end anytime soon? Or will the winds keep howling outside and will more and more roof shingles fly off or shutters skitter across parking lots?
Right now, I am facing the storm armed with, among other weapons, the belief that God will take care of us, because he cares for the birds and we are worth more than many of them . . . and still also armed with a snarky sense of humor.
So, one more time on the chorus:
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
And I feel fine!
Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.
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