A couple of days ago, we had some major thunderstorms roll through the Atlanta area. And what was I doing? Standing outside in the middle of one, at a bus stop, waiting for my son to come home from school.

When I went to pick him up, it was raining and the sky was dark. Naturally, I did not want to let him walk home in a storm. I got my handy dandy umbrella, drove my car to the side street, parked, and walked the rest of the way to the bus stop. Then I stood, and waited. And waited. And waited.

Meanwhile, the winds picked up. The sky got even darker, and balls of quarter-sized hail rained down. Then the storm sirens went off. Great! I thought. This is just lovely!

Pretty soon the wind was blowing so hard, the hail was coming in sideways, under my umbrella. I was nearly knocked off my feet. Did I mention how wet I was? It looked like a had just walked into a lake.

The thought occurred to me that I should probably walk back to my car, but I figured, I'd end up missing my kid, and then he'd be stuck in the storm. That wouldn't be good. Besides, I was already wet, so what difference did it make if I got wetter?

So I stood there. Forty-five minutes! Yeah.  I know. Stupid. Eventually the storm passed, and my son's bus showed up.

The first thing he said when he got off the bus was, "Mama, a tornado touched down!"

I couldn't believe it. "No! Seriously?" I said.

"Yes!" he said. "It was about ten miles away. We had to stay in tornado position in the hall for over an hour!"

"That's nice," I said. "So I stood outside in tornado winds, waiting for you."

His eyes got big. "Mama, you're crazy!"

No kidding!

(In case you want to know, the winds I stood in were blowing at 65 miles an hour! Apparently, I did not get the memo from the school which was sent out about the kids being held there until the storm passed. Too bad for me!)