You're not going to die.

Hurricane this, hurricane that.

If there's anything I've learned after living for 18 years in Tampa, FL it's that there is some sort of hurricane forcefield that prevents them from ever coming close to the bay area. We may have some wind. We may have some rain. And certainly, we'll have forcasters telling us to stock up on water and beer because THIS one is coming straight for us, people!! But it never happens.

Never.

Now that I've lived in Orlando for 4 severe-stormless years, I'm assuming that the same is probably true. I feel like a fraud. I mean, after having spent my whole life in Florida, you'd think I'd have some better hurricane memories than "remember that time when it like, got kinda windy? You know, the Great Storm that knocked 2 shingles off of the roof? Man, I BARELY survived that one. Don't TREAD ON ME, MUTHA FUCKAA!"

But Tampanians are seriously in denial. Everytime there's a blip on the radar, the bottled water flies off the shelves and the battery powered radios come to life. Hurricane parties are EVERYWHERE and all the drunken attendees are convinced that THIS will finally be the storm that we can all tough out and tell the grandkids about. We'll have our day in the sun, gawddamnit. Miami ain't stealin' the glory this time 'round!

So there's this Hurricane Charley that's supposedly bouncing around somewhere to the south of us, allegedly making it's merry way up here. Am I concerned? No.

I've been disappointed by one-too-many hurricanes, people. I'm not getting my hopes up again just to have them dashed. Georges was supposed to be my knight-in-shining-armour back in '98 but he just breezed on past me for the southern bells of Mississippi.

Well, I'm not sitting by the phone on another lonely friday night, waiting for this one to sweep me off my feet. I'm not buying the bottled water. I'm not stocking up on beer and ribs. I'm not even going to make a clever t-shirt to taunt the storm. It's not coming here. I'm in the middle of the fucking state. No catagory 1 is that ambitious.

But apparently, I'm one of the few people who realizes this. Everyone around me is already caught up in Hurricane Hysteria. I work in a college, you see. Colleges have two opposing forces at work during a hurricane: the students want to get drunk, take their clothes off and go surfing, while the parents are freaking out because they know that their kids are really, really dumb.

So the students are calling me every five minutes claiming to be soooo worried because like, they don't want to DIE going to class, man! How could anyone expect them to go to class when there might be, like, RAIN on the way??
Then the parents are calling every two minutes wanting me to assure them that precious little Billy and Suzy won't drown in the apocalyptic downpour that is sure to envelope the world.

But the main flaw with both groups isn't that they really annoy me, although they do. It's that they're assuming that this hurricane will come anywhere near us, just because some hoity-toity, college-degreed forcaster says it will.

So listen up, everyone. I've got 22+ years in the "wanting a hurricane to tear through this joint cause I'm bored" business. If that's not an impressive resume, I don't know what is. And based on a lot of highly top-secret, beer-induced research, I've concluded that it's statistically impossible for it to happen in my lifetime. No Hurricane Charley. No Hurricane George. Not even Hurricane Flavian.
They aren't coming here.
They aren't ever coming here.

But, you know, on the off chance that I'm wrong, I might set my cell phone ringer to play "Rock you like a Hurricane" by the Scorpians. I don't want to look like I was caught completely unaware if this shit goes down.