People want to hear about the storm that struck your town about as much as they want to hear about the dream you had last night. Exactly not very much. Most will express concern with comments like “no way” or “that’s crazy.” But you get the sense that they’re playing solitaire on mute while you yammer on. Who can blame them? After ten minutes of this: “The wind peeled off my neighbors’ metal roof, folded it into an origami crane, and dropped it into their front yard!”, the only thing to say is this: “Uh-huh? Wow.” 
When I told some out-of-town friends about the microburst that hit Virginia last Thursday, I knew I was talking on borrowed time. But I couldn’t stop myself. “Half the city’s still out of power, houses and cars were smashed, 75-year old trees crashed down or were turned into matchsticks…” As the words came out of my mouth I could tell they were yawn-fodder. I know because I’ve heard about floods in Louisville and snow storms in Denver. I try to put myself in those places, but I have to pull back for self-preservation. Maybe it’s the Weather Channel’s fault, with its continuous loop of severe storm footage. Lately the earth’s been thrashing around like Joe Cocker. A person has to find a way to tune it out.
Talking about the storm locally, however, is another matter. People can’t get enough of it because we all experienced the same trauma. Old acquaintances are stopping by each others’ homes and offices to swap stories. The default seasonal greeting of “How’s your summer going?” has been trumped by “Is your power back on yet?” Microburst monologues in the grocery aisle draw bystanders like iron filings to a Wooly Willy wand. Nearly every parcel in town was affected by the 75 mph winds and pummeling rain. So the wonderfully empathetic craze-phrase “I know, right?” is both ubiquitous and sincere.
Down the hill from our neighborhood sits the undamaged local VFW chapter, its parking lot full. There’s plenty of booze and a grease-fan the size of a satellite dish. I’ve never been in, but I’m certain the mortar joints and roof trusses are held together by “I know, right?” People need the company of others who’ve lived through the same intense experience–war, storms, childbirth… Over the years I’ve been saddened and perplexed by how our culture trivializes new moms and their baby play dates. If we called them “BPDs” people might see them for what they are: roving lodges for another group of survivors.
We’ve all experienced it: the crying kid/s in the grocery or box store. And why do they cry after about 10 minutes of this sensory overload of Rice Krispies, garden hoses, size 48 D cup purple bras, Spic and Span, Charmin’, and a mile long row of every perceivable kind of junky candy bar and savory, salt filled flavor enhancing chemical loaded cello bag of chips on the planet? Because they haven’t learned to TUNE OUT. The length and width of the aisles alone make the mind wobble – stretching from jewelry dept. all the way to the video dept. — MILES away – down the aisle – maybe even in another county, but certainly ‘way back to the horizon line. IT IS JUST TOOOO MUCH for the young to fathom.
So NO WONDER when our far-fetched family and friends hear about our upturned trees and lack of power: they flat line us. They have learned to tune out via box store syndrome of overload . By now, the disasters around the world go the way of the Rice Krispies and the purple bras: right out of our mind and brought down to size – all so we can, somehow, cope. The only way we can be drawn out of our apathetic stupor is when the tree falls on our car or house. You know that acronym “NIMBY”? (not in my backyard ) ? — we are good to go UNLESS disaster strikes OUR backyard – otherwise, what the hey.