Number 75, part II

In "Number 75" I lamented—no, actually I bitched and moaned—about the local Social Security Office. Follow-ups are important, though, and I did in fact receive my new Social Security card in the mail, not even ten days after my appearance—that was, you may remember, my second appearance. And because I'm a learner, albeit a slow one, I have not yet laminated it, nor have I even thought of carrying it with me because, as per instructions, I'm keeping it in a safe place.

In my previous post, though, I neglected to add one important element of that second visit. While I sat in that mausoleum waiting for my number 75 be called, someone's cell phone rang. I still use the word "rang" to describe that sound, though those phones seldom ring in the Alexander Graham Bellian sense of the word. This particular device played, what seemed to be a synthesized and perfectly awful version of "We Are Family," one that would have caused Sly and the entire Stone Family very little joy. I could hear only half of the ensuing conversation, but I did take note of the word tornado when it spilled into the room. I should add that the weather forecast had included the threat of thundershowers, and while tornadoes are rare in central Connecticut, they are not unheard of.

A few minutes later, my cell phone, which does not play "We Are Family" or any other butchered piece of music, "rang." It was my wife: a tornado warning had, in fact, just been issued for Waterbury, a city about twenty miles to the southwest. She was not panicking, but I knew that twisters generally move from southwest to northeast—a fact that would place us in the line of fire, so to speak. Of course I also knew, with my years of weather savvy, that tornadoes in this area seldom hold together that long. (This observation will come as little consolation to the 1989 victims of the Bantam tornado which also struck Hamden, about fifty miles to the south.)

Now I faced a dilemma. My spot in line, hard-won by an hour of surly waiting, would be jeopardized if I raced home to the rescue. Of course I wasn't sure how to rescue anyone from a tornado anyway other than to hide in the basement until it's safe to go back upstairs and sort out the rubble. And my wife did not seem panicky, despite the blackness of the western sky and the gusting winds.

"It'll never make it over the mountain," I said, hoping that there was a mountain between Waterbury and us. I know there are some hills—they're sort of like mountains.

I could have added some suggestion about the basement, but that would have been an intimation of danger, and there was the matter of my place in line.

In the end the tornado came nowhere near us; in fact, we saw little lightning or thunder until an hour or two later when another storm—much more violent—blew through and sent most of the dead branches in our trees hurtling into our lawn. I was home for that one. I was in the basement.

Life is filled with moral dilemmas, and I'm afraid my decision to retain my place in line is going to cost me. Not today, and maybe not tomorrow. But come the final reckoning someone guarding the gates of the heaven that I'm pretty sure doesn't exist is going to ask me to explain myself, and my only recourse will be to produce my nice new unlaminated Social Security card, which, of course, I will not be able to produce because it's in a safe place.