What do you get when you mix tornado sirens, a power outage, four desperate coffee drinkers, and a Notre Dame graduation? A suspense-thriller disguised as a family trip… with a Starbucks cameo that saved civilization (well, at least our moods).
When I wrote this post I was visiting a daughter in Michigan. I’m sound asleep in my bedroom on the second floor. In a half lucid state I hear my daughter calling, “Dad, Dad.” Am I dreaming or is it real? My brain slipped out of the fuzzy state. I opened my eyes and there is my daughter standing in the doorway.
She said, “Dad, do you hear the tornado sirens?”
That explains my dream of the police chasing me. She continued, “We’re going down into the basement.”
For the next hour the tornado sirens wailed and wailed. Try falling back to sleep after that. I eventually drifted off to sleep. When I awoke, it was still dark. I thought I grab a shower before anyone else was awake. Good Luck. No electricity. I had to shave since we were traveling the Notre Dame for a granddaughter’s graduation. Using my iPhone’s flashlight I shaved, showered and got ready for the trip.
Then we faced our next challenge, four people in a car for a two hour ride and all of us are coffee drinkers. No electricity in the city and four avid coffee drinkers confined in a small space. We had all the ingredients simmering for a macabre thriller.
What the heck, we turned our lack of coffee into a challenge and had lots of fun. Ninety minutes later, after we traveled 15 miles out of the way, we find a Starbucks coffee shop. Our world view became brighter. Graduation was awesome. And, I returned home with stories to share. Cheers to you. Where’s my cup? I need a refill.