Vanity Comes Before a Storm

My roommate and I are all settled in to wait out the approaching hurricane. We've stored extra food and water, and plenty of flashlights and candles. Now that the transit system is shut down, it seems that most other people are also waiting quietly at home. The streets are strangely quiet and the air in the apartment is thick with humidity. We are not expecting any weather that's too crazy before tonight at least, so before bed I will fill the bathtub and move a few things away from the windows.

We live in the middle of Brooklyn, so we are far from any of the evacuation zones. The NYC Hurricane Evacuation Zones map is below with a red dot that shows where we live.

I've actually found that waiting for this storm is almost dull, now that we are all ready (without meaning to sound flippant about such a serious matter). But instead of feeling bored, I am looking at this as a chance to have a very quiet day at home, and so far it's been nice. At some point, I think I will clean my room. Sterling said she may scrub the floors. If the electricity holds out I will watch a little TV and try to catch up on a few emails. If the lights do go out, we have candles to read by.

After taking a three-hour nap this afternoon, I decided to shave and shower so I don't feel like a complete slob sitting around the house all day long. As I was shaving, however, I began to wonder if anti-slobbiness was my real reason for getting cleaned up or if I am just thinking more like my grandma did during a rough storm that hit my hometown on the morning of July 5, 1987. I remember my grandma telling us that when the weather started getting very bad, she got out of bed and got dressed and woke my uncle up and made him get dressed because if a tornado did blow them away, she didn't want people to look up and say, “Look at that man and woman flying around in their nightgown and underwear!”

After giving it a little more thought, I haven't decided if cleanliness or vanity is my real motivation for getting spiffied up, but I suspect it's a little of both. Either way, I'm all clean and ready to snooze out in front of the TV for a bit.