Thursday, September 4, 2008

Aftermath: Gustav? Eh, probably not so bad! by Will

Rusty Shakelferd is en route to New Orleans where classes at Tulane University will resume on Monday.

Thank you Rusty for your faithful reporting and contributions to Buntology.
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Now that Hurricane Gustav has just about completed its rape of Louisiana and some of her neighboring states, I can't help but stop and think that I really wouldn't mind being in the shoes of those Southerners. Don't get me wrong, I understand the drawbacks. Last I heard, seven people had been killed during the storm, but compare seven to the thousands of injuries and deaths related to household plants every year. (To all those people who are dropping your jaws in disgust right now, I'm not trying to make light of the deaths caused by the hurricane, merely shedding light onto another big issue: household plant injuries/fatalities). Selfish.

The truth is that from any major tragedy or trauma comes an element of excitement that is normally hidden. For every church that prayed for these people in the middle of the hurricane, there had to be one or two people thinking in the back of their minds, "This.. is.. AWESOME!"

Maybe I'm just one of those people. Because whenever I think of the hurricane, I think of "28 Days Later." I'm imagining it like the opening of a movie trailer. The calm before the storm. I'd be sitting barefoot on my front porch in overalls with a piece of straw in my mouth (just like all Southerners do) looking up at the grey sky with thunder crashing in the distance. I'd be sitting next to my wife (probably named Helen or Louise) and we'd make eye contact for a second, emotionless, no words spoken until Don LaFontaine (R.I.P!) came in with his booming voice-over: "In a world where there's no escape..." followed immediately by a thunder crash and lots of cut scenes of me running through the rain with a shotgun and barricading my neighbors' doors. The only difference between Hurricane Gustav and "28 Days Later" are the Zombies.

Apparently more than half a million houses lost power, and they said it could take up to two weeks to get it back. There were also 8 p.m. police-enforced curfews instated in many of those areas. This is even more exciting. I wouldn't be like everyone else in that situation, sitting at home in a dim, candle-lit room playing Mouse Trap with my family. I'd be running through the rain, going house to house barricading doors and exchanging stories, dodging the curfew police. What would I be doing at 8 p.m. with the power on? Probably playing a violent video game in which I'm running through the rain, going house to house barricading doors, dodging the curfew police. Hurricane Gustav lets you LIVE your fantasies! ... ... that one's too easy. I'll let you insert your own filth here.

The reality of it all, on second thought, is that without power for two weeks I'd probably get really bored after the first night. And no power means no Internet, which means no ability to read buntology. And living in Louisiana means I probably wouldn't want to meet my neighbors anyway. Hurricane Gustav sucks.

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