Hurricane Brittany

Yard work doesn’t seem to be agreeing with Brittany. She’s made three trips to Urgent Care since buying her first house. Once for a spider bite (I got a very scary email of her leg with the caption, “do you think I should go to the doctor?), another time she was attacked by an “army of red ants”, and the latest they weren’t sure if it was a tic or not (it had a red ring), but they put her on two different antibiotics anyway!

John told her that if she had done more (any) yard work growing up she would have built up some immunity.

I was a little more concerned. Was her house in the jungle? Brittany assured me it wasn’t; it was just South Carolina where, “you know the state bird here is a bug, right?”

After the news of the latest trip to the doctor, I thought the rest of the day would be quiet. It was a Sunday after all. But while I was making dinner, she called again. They were having another couple over for dinner and had set their new stove on fire. At least she was in the car on her way to pick up Chinese take out (the mahi mahi was ruined) and not to the doctor for burns!

The next morning I was browsing through Facebook comments when my name caught my eye. Brittany was talking about Hurricane Irene heading toward Charleston and she was glad her parents were only four hours away in case they and the two dogs needed to evacuate.

Friends and neighbors were already giving her suggestions about moving breakable things away from her windows and even boarding the windows up. Her boss was updating emergency contact numbers and telling them if it was too windy Friday they didn’t have to come in since everyone had to travel over a bridge. I called and suggested she get all the packing boxes out of her garage so that she could get at least one of their cars inside.

That was when she asked if they could come if they needed to. I said of course, but she should prepare anyway and take it one day at a time.

And Brittany being Brittany; that meant shopping. Later that night I saw she had posted a picture on Facebook. The groceries she bought were spread out on her dining room table: 2 gallons of water, 6 cans of Beanie Weenies and 6 cans of dog food. With the caption “Bring it on, Irene!”

Yeah. She’s ready.