Chapter 1: Home

April 26, 2004

7:43 AM

I was in the middle of my eighth hour of sleep for the night. I was lying in my bed. The bed was a large queen size one, with white sheets and a white bedspread with pink embroidered flowers on it, something my wife Michelle requested. I was having a rather nice dream, namely, the flying one. I have several recurring dreams. There's the one where I'm at school, the one where I'm trying to get to work but can't find my clothes (despite the fact I've never once had a job that required me to get up any earlier in the morning than when I pleased, and still don't), and the one with the giant lobster. This dream was the flying dream, where I'm zipping through the air. Just about everyone I know has had this dream, and I rather enjoy it. But it was about to be interrupted when two big hairballs entered the room.

The first thing I saw when I was awoke was the face of Holstein. Holstein is my cat. He got his name after he was born. He has a black back, and a white tummy. My wife, who grew up on a farm, said he looked like a little Holstein cow. Thus, he got his name of Holstein. The cats' births are an interesting story. On March 30, 1999, a pregnant female cat showed up on our doorstep. We took her in, and two days later, on April Fool's Day, she gave birth to two kittens, and died shortly thereafter. We took in the kittens, and named them. My wife called one Holstein, as I just explained, and my son, then ten, named the other Skeletor, after what he was watching on TV when the kittens were born. Yes, he and I still joke about He-Man. Anyway, that's the story of the birth of the two big tumbleweeds of cat hair that were about to wake me up.

Holstein's face was black on top, with white on the bottom. The border was around his nose. He pressed his nose, which was cold and wet, on my cheek. Thus, my flying dream crashed.

"Mmmf. Whadyawant, cat?" I mumbled. The cat meowed in response. I figured he wanted food. Both cats have loud, piercing meows. I turned my head, and saw Skeletor, who was orange with black stripes (picture Garfield from the comic strip, except Skeletor is a bit fatter), laying on the pillow beside me, where Michelle sleeps. Or was sleeping, as she gets up at 4:30 AM every morning. The next thing I noticed was the TV was on. Keanu Reeves in a black trench coat was firing on some building or another. Great, I thought, my wife left The Matrix on again. Michelle is obsessed with The Matrix. She watches it practically every night. I never liked the movies in the first place, and I'm absolutely sick of them now. Holstein got up, and started walking on me. This was uncomfortable, as he weighs nineteen pounds and eleven ounces. Beats Skeletor, he weighs exactly twenty-two pounds. Holstein got to around my legs, when I pushed him off of the bed with my foot. He quickly hopped right back on the bed, and started walking on me again. Skeletor meowed at me.

"Shut up, cat." I said. Skeletor meowed in response. He walked to my face, and meowed again, this time close enough so I could smell his old stale cat food breath. These cats wanted food. I finally got out of bed. I was wearing jeans, as I usually sleep in whatever pants I'm wearing. I opened the closet, and picked out a Hawaiian shirt at random, this one being red with black silhouettes of dragons on it. I put it on. I looked at the clock. 7:45 AM. I went to bed around 11 PM last night, so I figured I would have woken up around 8 anyway. My job lets me work at home, except for long drives into the Plains states. I went into the bathroom across the hall from my bedroom, and brushed my teeth, and combed my hair. In case you want to picture me, I'm about six feet tall, I have coffee-colored hair in a mullet (stop laughing), I have bright green eyes, almost lime, and my name is Michael Hilter. No, not Hitler, Hilter. Yes, I get asked about it a lot. No, I really don't care if you find my name offensive, since you probably have a name like Orville Hooternucker or Q-bert Stumpnaggle. The two hairballs followed me into the bathroom, and out when I walked into the family room. My daughter Katie, who was 14, was sitting on the couch watching TV. I glanced at the TV, which was turned on to FOX News. I went into the kitchen, and got out a couple cans of Friskies Salmon Delight. I pulled the tabs, and scooped out the cat food. They ate heartily.

"As if these morons couldn't live off their fat for a month." I said. "When's the last time they ate, two hours ago?"

"Something like that. I know David fed them when he got up for school this morning."

David was my son, who was 15. He went to public school, while Katie was homeschooled. Why this is is also an interesting story. When David was beginning eighth grade, my wife realized that they would be in high school soon. Michelle was afraid of high school, especially the ones we have here in New Orleans. So she suggested that we homeschool the kids. I said no, and gave all the usual anti-homeschool arguments, like they needed to have a social life, they needed to learn to rely on themselves, etc. But my wife insisted on homeschooling them. So I came up with a compromise. When the kids graduated from eighth grade and went to high school, we would ask them if they wanted to continue public school, or homeschool. The choice was theirs. David hit the choice first. He was making mediocre grades, but he said he liked the public school environment, and had many friends, and he chose to continue public school. Michelle was horrified, although David is a sophomore in high school, and has lots of friends. He gets suspended from time to time for fighting and various other high school antics, but I don't see it as that big of a deal. Katie came to the choice about a year ago. She was an outcast in school, and was already heading down the unholy Goth path, and she jumped at the chance to leave public school. And that is how I ended up with one homeschooled kid and one public-schooled kid. Now you know my entire family.

The strangest part of all about this was that when Katie was in public school, she had to get up at six every weekday morning. Thus, on weekends, she would get up around noon. But once we started homeschooling her, her sleep schedule got more regulated, and she started getting up between six and eight every morning.

Now that the two big fluffballs had their food, I went out the back door to see how Michelle's garden was doing. Michelle had been growing vegetables in our backyard ever since we moved to New Orleans in 1988. I walked out of the living room into the dining room, and out into the backyard. The garden seemed to be doing fine, except for a foot-high mound of chewed-up dirt on the grass near the edge of the garden. If you live in the South, you probably know what this means. If you live elsewhere, then this is a telltale sign of the joy that is fire ants. Fire ants are red ants, about a quarter of an inch long. They originally came from South America, though many that deal with them suspect they originated in Hell. Anyway, I had a large cone-shaped fire ant mound in my lawn. I walked over to the shed at the end of the backyard and got out the fire ant poison. One thing David used to do when he was younger was pour gasoline on the fire ant mounds and set them on fire, though Michelle made him quit when he torched a prize rose of hers in the process of incinerating a mound. Then there was the concoction David's ex-girlfriend came up with, a mixture of gasoline, Bleach, Dr. Bronner's soap (the soap that has all the rants written all over it), liquid Drano, weed killer, spray paint, mothballs, antifreeze, oil, and battery acid. She said that when poured on a mound, it fizzed a bit, and you could literally hear the fire ants screaming in pain.

I walked back over to the mound, and dumped the granules over it. Of course, the mound started boiling in fire ants. I also made the mistake of doing this barefoot. As if on cue, a sharp pain went up my foot. I looked down, and saw a fire ant on my foot. I kicked it off. I stepped back, and another pain came, this time on the bottom of my heel. I walked back to the porch, and went inside. Battle won, two casualties. I walked into the living room, where Katie was still watching FOX News. She changed the channel when I came in.

"What's on TV?" I asked.

"Oh, I got tired of watching FOX News. They were about to bring on Bill O'Reilly. I'm not in the mood for politics." Katie said.

"Don't blame you. What's on now?"

"Well, the other channels aren't any better. MSNBC is showing something on sex slaves in Thailand, ABC is showing something on the economy, CNN is whining about the war in Iraq, and HBO has a show on about some gay kid."

"Most kids would check MTV first."

"I liked MTV when the M stood for Music, instead of Mediocre. I did flick past them, they had some cartoon on."

"Cartoon Network?"

"Scooby Doo. I don't like that either." Katie changed the channel to American Classic Movies. I didn't recognize the movie on. Katie hit the Info button on the remote and a screen popped up.

"Robocop 2." Katie said. "Robocop is considered a classic now?"

"I didn't even know there was a Robocop 2." I said. "And after ze classic movie Casablanca, ze vill be showing ze timeless classic Robocop Deux."

Katie changed the channel. Two men were sitting in chairs, with one of them holding a book.

"We're here with pastor John Allan, who is here to tell us about his church. John?" The man to the right said.

"Yes, I'd like to speak about our church's newfound policy of open- mindedness and tolerance, but first I'd like to talk about our new book, Death Penalty for Homosexuals." I about lost it laughing my ass off at that. Katie changed the channel. Coverage of a baseball game came on. A guy, someone I didn't recognize, was up to bat. The pitcher threw the ball, and the guy hit it. He ran to first, second, third, and was heading home. The ball had flown out into far right field. The right outfielder caught it, and threw it to the pitcher. The pitcher was running toward the player. Suddenly, the player caught his foot running and tripped, falling end over end. The pitcher walked up to him, held the ball over the player, who was now lying on his back, and the pitcher dropped the ball onto his crotch. This was even funnier than John Allan.

"Now I know why I stopped watching sports." I said.

"Could be worse." Katie said. "Could have been golf." Katie changed the channel again, and asked me something.

"What happened to your foot? You've got a big red mark on your foot."

"Fire ants. There was a mound in Mom's garden." I answered. I looked at the TV, to see what was on.

"Mystery Science Theater." Katie said. "I'll stick with this for a while. The movie looks really stupid." The movie was some zombie movie made in the 70s. Sure enough, the outlines of seats, along with the shadows of Tom and Crow were at the bottom. A scientist on the movie said, "words are like violence." The next thing I heard was Joel and the robots yelling "BREAK THE SILENCE, COME CRASHING IN, INTO MY LITTLE WORLD!"

"I remember that song." I said. I used to hear it on the radio when I was in college. I went into the kitchen, and got out some eggs, and turned the Mr. Coffee espresso machine on. I put a skillet on, and turned on the gas. I cracked the eggs open, and started cooking them. I heard garbled noises that sounded like the robots from the living room.

After a few minutes, the eggs were cooked, and I put the suckers on a plate, and ate it in the kitchen. The coffee was done when I finished the eggs, and I gulped it down without sugar or creamer. That's the only way to drink coffee if your goal is to wake yourself up. My mind was buzzed, so I went back into the living room. Katie had changed the channel.

"The zombie movie got too stupid. Not even Joel and the 'bots could save it." She explained. I looked at Katie. In case you're curious, or you find 14-year-olds attractive, or whatever, Katie was about 5'1, and weighed 95 pounds. She had blonde hair, dyed black, and she basically was your typical Goth teenage girl. I didn't mind that she dressed Goth, in all black. I found it more amusing than anyone else. As long as she wasn't trying to kill herself every other week, like some of her friends, I was happy. Then Katie turned to the Weather Channel.

"And we are expecting storms to pop up tomorrow over Arkansas and Mississippi. These storms are expected to be severe, with a strong chance of hail, and even some rotation, meaning tornadoes." Tornadoes. Music to my ears. And it is with this that I introduce my job: Storm chaser, and leader of the storm chasing group F6, which was about to engage in its biggest adventure yet.