I dedicate this post to Riley..

For those of you that do not know, I'm TERRIFIED of bad weather.

Always have been, always will be.

I have quite a few stories behind this, but I'm afraid it's 8:05 p.m. on a Friday night, and the storms are just now rolling in. For lack of better terms, I'm terrified! All of my friends are out of town and for the first time in a long time, I'm in B'ham for the weekend with no one..not even my puppy dog :(

That being said..

I'm afraid you wouldn't know the meaning of the word "sirens" unless you grew up in the Mayer home.

Sirens=Get to closet as quickly as possible...and you better not forget your shoes!

To say that Meridian always has bad weather is an understatement.

We moved to our current home in Meridian when I was in the fourth grade. That spring, a tornado hit our street(of course my room being the closest to the street) in the middle of the night. Needless to say, all that I recall from that fateful night was screaming so loud that I not only woke everyone in the house up, but I also woke myself up. For those of you who do not know, I have a tendency to scream in my sleep! That being said, we hustled and bustled to the closet, but everything was gone by the time we made it there. Apparently, I was screaming, "It's a train, it's a train!" and I was screaming this so loud that I woke my parents up. All that anyone knew at the time was that the weather was terrible. The next morning we awoke to find that the "train" was actually a tornado that did some damage to our neighborhood.

Needless to say, from that moment on "the sirens" took on a whole new meaning!

Anytime a "siren" (tornado siren, that is) is set off, the Mayer family hustles to the closet, b/c tornadoes follow their same path (for those of you who are unaware!)

But rules for the closet:

1. You must bring shoes (or you will be sent back out to find them!)

Who knows why?! My mom always said that if there was any "damage" that we might need them, or to run of course you know!!

2. You must have a flashlight.

3. You must have a cell phone.

Our guest bedroom closet is our "weather" closet, and it comes equipped with one flashlight, a radio, lots of blankets, and lots of pillows. It is also capable of being made into a pallete for those late-night closet runs too, of course!

So, my post is dedicated to Riley, my cousin, for this reason:

Riles, and for that matter any member of the Von family, had never experienced "the sirens" until one of their more recent visits to Meridian. A few years ago, it was pretty bad weather outside and all of a sudden out of nowhere...you guessed it, the sirens went off!! I made them turn off the television, verify that we actually heard them..and then the "siren" drill began! And the whole Von family acted clueless!! I was like, "Hello, what are you doing?! Get on the move...to the closet!!!" They had no idea what was going on, they didn't know what the sirens meant, they had never heard them, and oh my gosh getting in the closet?! Haha, they got quite a kick out of that one..but guess what?! Off to the closet they went..shoes and all!!

And they've never let us forget that night!!

But they'll know next time a tornado rips through Little Rock..they will be prepared if ever they find themselves hearing the sirens!

I'm afraid we're all in for a long night...at least I am!