I’ve been flipping through the channels at night, late. I haven’t been sleeping too well lately. I guess it’s the tornado that came through. You know, changing perceptions of what’s nailed down.
Several nights we didn’t have power. And I woke up in the middle of the night, scared, trying to make sense of it, thinking, praying. There’s nothing like a natural disaster to make you do the “Dorothy and Toto” thing. You know, sit up late, in the dark, and rethink what’s solid, where home is . . . flying monkeys. The whole bit.
Yeah, well, after a few days, they got the power back on, and the cable—which is amazing, because it took ’em three weeks to come out and install the cable in the first place. Anyway, the first night I got my cable back, I woke up in the middle of the night, and I didn’t sit and think, or pray. I started flipping through channels. And for some reason, I zoned in on a TV preacher. He had really big hair. When I tuned in, he was just getting wound up, saying that he had “prayed that tornado away from his Temple of Praise out on Highway 9!” Of course, he didn’t say anything about the tornado hitting the trailer park three counties over on Highway 251. Yeah, well … no Temple there, I guess. I think this was the same TV preacher who said Jesus wants everybody to drive a Cadillac. (I always thought only Mary Kay could get you one of those.) This guy said Jesus is on hold, waiting to make everybody “healthy and wealthy! All you need is to claim it!”