Where were you when the tornado hit?

I received a text message from the Ebay King asking if I wanted to go to the Hawks game. Sure, why not, it was Friday and I had nothing better to do, besides who can pass up cheap tickets procured by the Ebay King himself? So off to the Hawks game I went without a care in the world.
During the fourth quarter, with the Hawks score surpassing 100, my legs started to cramp and my knees began to lock from being scrunched up in those game seats, cheap tickets never guarantees comfy seating. I looked at my watch, listened to my body and knew that I would begin a mini tantrum if I didn’t get out of there quick. I leaned over to my companion and whispered in his ear “anytime you are ready…” the nice way of saying “I’m ready to go!”
10 minutes later we were making our way down to the MARTA station, I had insisted we take the train in because I refused to deal with Friday night traffic in the city, especially during the ACC tournaments. As we made our way down the long escalator to the east/west line, the lights went out in the station, only the backups were on which gave the place an eerie feel. There weren’t that many of us down on the first level. I looked over at the lady on the escalator next to us and she looked back with alarm. She started to mutter something about them taking better care of the station and how this shouldn’t happen down here. I just replied with a heartfelt “oh hell naw!”
The MARTA workers looked calm and the MARTA dogs didn’t even raise their heads off the ground, so I shrugged and kept it moving. The escalators to the bottom level where the trains came in had stopped working, so we walked down them, mildly wondering where the other steps at the station were.
As we waited for the train the station began to fill with people coming from a number of events that was going on in the area. Adults, children, teenagers, all of us were down there not so patiently waiting for our train. The train on the opposite side, going the other way seemed to keep coming, every 5 to 10 minutes, but our train was nowhere in sight and the station was getting crowded.
I thought I heard the train coming, finally and I looked down the tunnel. I saw something that looked like a dirt cloud, but I wrote it off as blurry contacts. I turned my head and began to rub my eyes. When I looked back I could feel wind and assumed it was a train, even though I didn’t see any lights. The wind started to get stronger and the dirt cloud got denser. At this point we could feel what felt like sand being blown in our faces as we turned to cover ourselves. We were battered by a strong, consistent burst of wind and dirt that left just as fast and mysteriously as it had come.
And still no train…

The rest of the trip home was mildly uneventful. They ended up taking the trains off line, right as we were getting to our station where the car was parked. We were lucky. During the ride the train kept getting delayed, a couple stops down the line a passenger said something about severe weather and a tornado warning for downtown. Severe weather I could believe, but really, not in the city, because tornados don’t strike in the city. Tornados NEVER strike in the city, so I scratched that off and chalked it up to hyper vigilance by the weather people. I mean after all, the weather people said it was going to rain (which it never really did) and that was all for the night. No severe weather (or else I would have never left the house) and definitely no tornado watches or warnings.
So now I’m counting my fingers and counting my toes, counting my blessings and deleting my woes, its great to be alive!