I See God

"I See God" is a driving game we invented on our latest vacation. The rules are simple - if you are the first to spot a church, you state, loudly, clearly, and before anyone else, "I see God," and then you get a point. Each player accumulates points until someone who's not in the lead sees a cemetery, which, following a clearly stated, "I see dead people," resets the game. It's not the greatest driving game ever, but it works well on state highways and county roads, where we spent almost all of our driving time on this particular journey.

Our travels first took us to Iola, Kansas for my wife's cousin's wedding. From there it was on to Osage Beach, Missouri, smack in the middle of the Lake of the Ozarks. It was on the drive to Osage Beach where the game really took off. My wife at one point, from her front passenger seat (a situation so advantaged as to almost be cheating, by the way), accumulated 6 (6!) points before my youngest ended her run with a mercifully small (because my wife couldn't see it) cemetery hidden off the side of the road.

A couple of days into our stay in Osage Beach, we decided to head to the outlet mall for some after dinner shopping. By 'we' I mean me, my wife, my daughter, and my mother-in-law. I wanted to check out the Brooks Brothers store, and my m-i-l had some kind of secret mission that included my daughter.

It was cloudy when we set out for the mall. None of us was thinking about the weather. I had my mind on a shirt - a nice, plain, white dress shirt. A replacement shirt for the white shirts I've worn out over the years. A simple thing. My wife wanted sandals. M-i-l and my daughter had the aforementioned secret mission.

Steady, sometimes heavy rain fell on the way to the mall. M-i-l noted that, hey, those clouds over there look kind of ominous. We all concurred and continued to focus on our destination. Oh the wonderful things we'll buy!

As we pulled into the parking lot, the destination of the secret mission was revealed: Bath and Body Works. I scanned the collection of generic, strip-mall stores looking for the B&BW signage when I saw a young man staring vacantly into the sky and speaking into his cell phone. "That's weird," I said.

I dropped m-i-l and daughter at the B&BW and headed across the lot toward Brooks Brothers. "Let's check the radio," I said, hitting the AM button followed by 'seek'. The first 3 hits were music. The fourth yielded, "Tornado warning for Osage Beach."

"Aren't we in Osage Beach?" I asked my wife. She looked left. I looked right. "Where is it? I don't see it."

The radio repeated the warning. Take cover in blah blah blah. "Yeah, I know what to do, but I'm in a f--king outlet mall parking lot, 500 miles from home." The stores appeared to be mostly glass, and sans basements. Katie looks right. I look left. Nothing. In fact, the sky appears to be lightening up a bit.

I don't know why, but I looked straight up. For just a moment I was speechless. Breathless. "Katie," I croaked, "I can see God." I looked toward Katie. "Look up."

"What is that?" she said.

Quietly, as if not trying to wake it, I responded, "it's the tornado." For some reason I continued whispering. "It's right above us. Hold still and you can see the rotation."

Wife and I sat motionless, speechless, and without inhalation for moments. Several long moments. Awestruck, battling several thoughts at once. Is this where we die? It's beautiful. Look at the symmetry! It looks like cotton candy. If it drops right now, will it pick up the van? What does flying glass embedding in my skin feel like?

"What do we do? Go inside?" wife wondered, trance-like. It was like a dream.

"Not really sure. It hasn't dropped yet. It must be a 'Doppler-indicated' tornado." It's tail was a couple hundred feet straight above the minivan. Maybe not even that much. "If we can drive at a 90 degree angle from the direction it's travelling, we can outrun it. Which way is it going?" [A parallel track had started running in my mind. Holy f--king s--t! This could be it. This is not the way I wanted to go...]

We sat silently, not even breathing, waiting for the tornado to do something besides spin over our heads. "I think it's moving away from us," [Of course, I thought, if it touches down right now, we're f--ked.] "Wait...wait...yeah, I think it's moving away." And it was also moving away from B&BW.

We called m-i-l on her cell phone. No answer. She returned the call while we called her again. We traded voicemails. By this time the sirens finally erupted. "Is there a tornado warning?" she asked.

"It's right above us. We're watching it right now. I'm going to come pick you two up."

"We're just going to run down to the Maidenform shop - it's just a couple of doors down. Pick us up there."

What?! She wants to keep shopping?! Really?

"The tornado's right here in the parking lot. It's right above us." I was whipering again, trying again not to draw the tornado's attention.

"Is it moving away?"

"Yeah. Kind of." Still whispering. "I think so. Which way is west?" It was too dark to use daylight to determine direction. After a short discussion we concluded that the tornado was moving away from the mall.

I picket up m-i-l and daughter at the Maidenform shop and we headed back to Brooks Brothers. We received great service; I bought my white shirt, and we spent about 40 minutes in the shop. A second tornado was spotted in Osage Beach - m-i-l and I wandered into the parking lot to see it for ourselves. Then we called my father-in-law, who was watching the boys.

"How're the boys doing?" my wife asked. She listened to her father's response. She told him that the laundry room was probably the best place to go. And no, don't tell them about the tornado. Don't know what they'd do, but it's likely f-i-l couldn't handle it. "No, we'll stay here until the all clear," wife told her father.

One of the BB associates, on the phone, shared that the second tornado had been spotted on County Road Y. Since the condo containing f-i-l and the boys was located on County Road W, we all grew concerned. Attempts to hale f-i-l via cell phone were fruitless.

"Which 'Y'?" m-i-l asked the associate. "How many Y's could there be?" I wondered. In a local dialect understandable only to lifelong Missourians, m-i-l and the associate determined it was a different location miles away. Whew!

During the 40 minutes in the store we had an opportunity to discover other wonderfully-priced BB products. Fearing personal insolvency, I suggested we head home even though the rain was still quite heavy. M-i-l insisted on a last quick stop at the Coach store (they initially wouldn't let her in because they were in a lock-down and couldn't remove it until the "official" all-clear had been sounded, but as they debated the situation the all-clear did officially sound and m-i-l procured a new purse).

When we arrived back at the condo the boys were watching the National Geographic channel (no local weather crawls on the cable channels to scare my youngest) and f-i-l was watching the sky out on the porch. Wife and I shared a pitcher of Sangria and slumbered deeply.

I dreamt of the Wizard of Oz.