A Memorable Journey Down Tornado Alley

We were forced to go to Oklahoma for our next show; I say forced because I am convinced that Oklahoma is the worst state out of all the United States. It is closely followed by Alabama and Mississippi, which only rank lower than Louisiana because I am from Louisiana and have an inexplicable affection for it. But that’s irrelevant to the story.
I think we left Austin at 9ish to make the miserable trek through boring Texas and into gross Oklahoma. The journey through boring Texas was uneventful, and…well…boring. The weather, annoyingly overcast and just generally depressing, reflected my mood well. I found myself leaving one of my favorite cities in America to go to one of my least favorite, but it’s the price you pay for being a rock star…or at least it’s the price you pay for partaking, occasionally, in a quasi-rock star lifestyle. I say only quasi-rock star lifestyle because we avoided sex and drugs, and only got in the occasional fight. But that wasn’t important at the time because Oklahoma grew closer by the mile.
The decision to stop for gas, an executive decision made by my about-to-explode-from-being-full-of-pee bladder, and the car’s empty tank, was a wise one. So we found a suitable gas station, one with the cheapest gas*(Cheapest being completely relative because a steak dinner at a five star restaurant cost about the same as a gallon of gas, therefore cheapest refers to that same meal with a water instead of a coke.)* and a lot of stupid stuff to look at while the 20+-gallon tank of our tour bus*(Our tour bus was a 2004 Tahoe with leather seats, a Bose sound system, and the very back seat taken out in a not-so-genius idea to make a bed like thing in the back. The only problem with the idea was we’re a bunch of guys who like to throw food and spill stuff on each other while driving. So it was gross and cramped and smelled like sweaty balls and BO.)* filled up. During our rush to the bathroom we didn’t bother to notice the change in the weather, which would come back to haunt us in about…10 minutes.
But we did notice the gust of wind that helped us to open the door. I say gust because I don’t think weatherologists*(I made this word up)* haven’t invented a proper word to describe this blast of moving air. As I began opening the door this example of pure brutality saw an opportunity for embarrassment and leapt at the door, throwing its hellish entirety into the glass of the door that consequently acted as a wind catcher. The handle of the door left my hand as the entire door was flung off its hinges and into a parked 18 wheeler causing a small mushroom cloud to erupt and envelope all surrounding 18 wheelers and people. Actually that didn’t happen. But I digress.
Thankfully for everyone else, what really happened was the door slammed against the glass floor-to-ceiling window next to it; the handle luckily connected with the metal support beam and didn’t break any glass (kudos to the architect). Luckily I had enough grace and poise to be thrown into the window with the door. That stupid gust of wind blew me into the stupid door that had been blown into the stupid window. Of course my band mates initiated their laugh-without-holding-back-at-what-just-happened and everyone in the station just had to see who the idiot was that let go of the door. They didn’t understand…that was no mere gust of wind; it was a windblast from Hell.
So after I finally got myself through the doorway and fought to get the door closed behind me; I practically ran to the bathroom. After relieving myself I went to wash my hands, like I always do. Normally this wouldn’t be exciting enough to write about, which is why I didn’t expect anything exciting to happen. But alas, the sink faucets turned out to be power washer nozzles and sprayed water out at ungodly speeds, tearing the first three layers of skin from your hands with any soap and other germs picked up during the pee process.
After warning everyone in the bathroom about the sinks I left and went shopping for healthy sustenance, which usually came in the form of chips, candy, and a bottle of water. I and some other band members brought our chosen items to the cashier, and received the cashier’s friendly smile and greeting. As he rang up my items he said six words that I will forever remember, “Hope you boys aren’t going north.”
“Actually we are.” I replied naively, “Why shouldn’t we?” Man, I was an idiot and the look from the cashier told me so. He slowly pointed in a northern direction. As our eyes followed his point, I realized that I was indeed an idiot; something had happened, and night consumed the North. It was black and menacing. After we had ceased gawking in disbelief at the spectacle of nature we had just seen, the ever-so-informative cashier showed us the weather. “Holy shit,” a nameless member of the band said.*(His name rhymes with Goster and is also a type of beer.)* That about summed it up. Our route was covered by a death pattern of all different shades of green. “That stretch of road is called tornado alley,” the cashier said authoritatively. “And that is a storm, and this is the middle of tornado season.” Once again I think weatherologists need to come up with a better word for terms like “storm.”
So we all prepared to return to the bus, which was full of petroleum and ready to get us where we needed to go. As soon as we opened the door, I repeat, as soon as we opened the door, it started to rain. Actually it didn’t start to rain. More like a torrential downpour*(Kudos to the weatherologist who came up with the phrase torrential downpour, but keep working on the other things.)* hit and began vengefully dumping tons and tons of water per second on our unprepared heads. It was death in the form of falling water, enough water to make you wet just by looking at it. And the worst part was the gap between the covered fill-up area and the store part. Water was streaming from the sky and onto the ground, threatening anyone to do anything stupid.
We ran back to the car and leapt in, with our adrenaline pumping and our minds excited about the dangerosity*(I also made this word up.)* of the journey ahead. As we pulled out from the cover and into the torrential downpour, we stared down tornado alley and welcomed the adventure with open arms. That’s what it’s all about. Six boys pumped full of their own adrenaline, ready to experience the world. We were high on excitement and the possibility that we might experience the world in its entirety, or at least make it through Okalahoma with our dignity.