After the recent Tornado scare at dear old WT this past week, I was reflecting on locations in which a student might be swept away. As a victim of the Davis Center bottom-floor bathroom shelter, I know firsthand that our school is not an optimal tornado hideout. With abundant floor-to-ceiling windows and a city-centric campus, the chance of survival is limited. With death by tornado imminent, I decided to compile a list of all the locations I would most likely be swept away from.

1.Jaywalking On Morewood and Bayard

I don’t know if this will get me suspended or expelled or something, so everything I am about to say is alleged. Yes, I jaywalk. What about it? The constraints of a green and red light are not stopping me, and if a path so appears in front of me, I will take it. My consistent violation is why it just makes sense that right when the light turns yellow, and I begin my venture out into the street, I will be taken straight from the crosswalk by a tornado. Either by God’s or Mr. Miller’s hands, a twister is bound to right my -alleged- pedestrian wrongs.

2. While Soloing During Blue Monk in Jazz Band

Don’t get me wrong, I love myself some Thelonious Monk, but ever since I have been given the opportunity to improv solo (I am grateful Mr. Maione I promise) on Thelonious’ classic Blue Monk, I have come to fear the jazzy notes of his melodies. As I stumble through a painful rendition of the blues scale and a few b flat chords, I often think to myself, “This couldn’t get any worse”. Oh yes, it can. My next prediction for the location of Twister touchdown is right after I hit an exceptionally clashy note during my solo. Maybe it is Theolonious himself conjuring a way to correct my misgivings or just Mr. Mainoie sighing exceptionally hard, no matter I will be lifted with my keyboard to the heavens by a tornado.

3.  At Morning Meeting While Waiting to Give an Annoucement

Those who gripe and groan about how trivial morning meeting announcements are have obviously never had to make one. Every time I go sit up at the front to announce a club meeting or sports triumph my nervous system decides that I am about to die. My body going into overdrive, with hands sweating and uncontrollable knee bouncing, I often barely get out my “Go Bears!” Enter the tornado. Sweeping me away at peak anxiety right before the big annoucement I can only imagine this twister as a Sharknado (the most threatening of kinds). The key here is that it would hit right before I am to give an annoucment preventing me from releasing my anguish and sending me straight up in its spiral of hammerhead sharks. Classic.