So I’m at this thing the other day, you know, one of those events where you walk in the door and they check you in and give you a name tag to clip on your person, along with a wine glass, and you feel awkward at first because you arrived alone so the first thing you do is scrape the room for a familiar face so you can immediately cling to him or her while you get your insecure bearings in order? Yeah, one of those.

Anyway, as I’m bouncing from one familiar face to another, tasting wine and bacon-wrapped shrimps on sticks, there are people here who feel important because they were on a guest list and the place which grandly opens the next day is closed to the public.

Now, this other thing that’s about to happen happens all the time and I’ve never thought twice about it, but this time it is obvious and I do indeed think twice about it.

I’m walking through the crowd and I see a guy turn toward me and look at my boob. Well, actually, he’s looking at my name tag, I think. He could have been looking at my boob, I suppose, but usually if someone looks at your boob, they look at both of your boobs, so their eyes are more centered between them and since my name tag was conspicuously dangling off of the edge of my right boob like a “Hello My Name Is” pasty and his eyes were definitely on THAT boob, I assume he’s looking at my name tag. Anyway, not the point — the point is, he was looking at my name tag. Just long enough to read it and know that he doesn’t recognize it. He doesn’t even bother to look at my face. All he cares about is my name and whether I am an important person, which he has immediately decided I am not, because he clearly doesn’t recognize my name and he instantly dismisses me with a turn of his head back to his circle of people.

My first thought was, What a jerk! Because my name tag doesn’t say [insert famous name here], you won’t waste your time introducing yourself so you can “network” with me about whatever the hell it is you do? I’m not important enough to further your career? You can’t even dismiss me with a little direct eye contact? I’m not even worth a quick glance of possible recognition? You ass!

Am I over analyzing this? Should I spend any more time worrying about these weenies who brush me off so quickly and who would probably have been a waste of my precious time to talk to anyway, because this guy was clearly selfish and nothing more than a what-can-you-do-for-me kind of guy?

I’ll have you know that I’m an important person. You should want to get to know me. I am awesome. I have things to offer. I am a person you should totally want to meet, gosh darn it! I know people! I have influence! And if you’re just going to assume I am a nobody, you better think again, Mister. And go to hell, while you’re at it!

I don’t know. Maybe he was looking at my boob.

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By the way, while you’re here, I read this book the other day that was hilarious, absurd, and somewhat foul (fowl?) called The Mincing Mocking Bird Guide to Troubled Birds. It’s billed as “an illustrated pocket field guide that enables anyone to quickly identify psychotic, violent or mentally unstable bird species.” It’s very offbeat, profusely illustrated, dark, twisted, and not meant for small children, language wise, but it’s kind of hysterical. Perfect for your bathroom or your kooky friend’s bathroom. Know any bird watchers? I wonder if they’d like it. Do bird watchers have senses of humor? I imagine them to be very serious people who never laugh and subscribe to the Smithsonian and National Geographic magazines which are never ever EVER allowed in the bathroom.

You’re probably wondering what the hell I’m doing here when I am up to my eyeballs in goose livers, but my housemate and I decided to take a break from all the poultry guts and celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary per our usual tradition of running off to the casino and spending the night. And with past annual visits resulting in power outages and thievery, we thought, what could possibly happen this time?

And so it was I’m yanking the one arm bandit’s chain when my phone vibrates urgently at me to tell me about a tornado warning and severe thunderstorms IN MY AREA and to seek immediate cover and go to the basement and stay away from the windows and all kinds of other tornado tips and tricks for survival.

And because we live in a town where weather and natural disasters never happen, we immediately ran up to our 16th floor hotel room and flipped on the nearest electrical appliance that we here in the capital city call the boob tube:

Oh my gosh, it really WAS a tornado warning in our area, as it turns out. And the whole town was talking about it. And we flew to the window and threw open the curtains and pressed our faces to the glass to see what we could see.

It’s the same with earthquakes. I feel the slightest vibration and I throw up my arms and scream “Whee!!” like I’m suddenly on Space Mountain at Disneyland. And I must have gotten in free because there is NO WAY I’m paying $150 to get into the Magic Kingdom these days. Are you kidding me? Why would I pay that kind of money to spend most of my day waiting in line? What was I saying? Oh yeah. The tornado.

So, because I’ve never been squashed or hurled or stomped or even scratched by a natural disaster, apparently my brain doesn’t register danger.

So there I was gawking out the window and exclaiming Wow! and Cool! and other lame exclamations (like probably even Groovy!) because we could see the very thing they were showing on the TV but from the dark side:

Can you see it? No?

Here’s a closer look:

Now can you see it?

So yeah, while the TV ticker was telling us to stay inside and hide under the beds and whatnot, we were oooh-ing and ahhh-ing like a couple of idiots, watching funnel clouds on the TV and from our window. And the dude in the TV station helicopter clearly had a better view than us and is it just me, or does the funnel cloud make the scene look like the meadow below is trying to say something?