Hurricane Emily?

I'm not into her. I already dealt with Hurricane Emily once. August 22nd to September 1, 1993.

It must have hit August 31, 1993. This was the hurricane that destroyed the relationship with our across-the-street neighbors. I've only begun to repair it with the kids and the wife since I went away to college and stopped hating them. The father is a lost cause. I think we're enemies because I'd turn the A/C up to 80 degrees and he'd want it at 50. And I was a spiteful 12 year old...so... you know.

Here's the deal. We used to go to North Carolina during the summers with our across the street neighbors. We did it twice. We'd rent one of those beachfront mansions with eighty million levels on Hatteras Island, just south of the Peabody Nature preserve in Rodanthe, NC in the Outer Banks. And every time we'd do it with the neighbors (we went in 1992 with other friends..that time was without storm) we'd get a hurricane. In 1991 it was Hurricane Bob, and in 1993 it was Hurricane Emily.

Ugh. We'd invariably arrive at Hatteras Island, get to the house, run around it, and then have to evacuate the next day to Elizabeth, NC and stay in a Holiday Inn, as everyone else in the world made the trek off Hatteras Island as well, to avoid the hurricane.

We never even got to our house in 1993. It was called "BJ's Bungalow." That's a lie. We got there once, like two days before the vacation was going to end. We ended up staying in Nags Head that summer, at the neighbor's friends' house, that he wasn't going back to, because of the storm.

That house was a dump. We fought with the neighbors. The husband was constantly drunk, and I just remember being pounded over and over and over again into the sand by 11 foot-high waves.

We finally saw BJ's Bungalow... once. We went there once they re-opened Hatteras Island, but the area all around the house was flooded, and there was no electricity in the area... It was just sad. The house was a palace compared to the place that we ended up staying that summer.

Now, whenever I think of a hurricane coming, I just think of mosquitoes and standing water, and lack of electricity, and heat, and go-karts, and water being blown through the roof.

Eh. They're sort of exciting. But more than anything else, they ruin shit.