Exit: Stage Left

People of the Gulf (this means you, too, New Orleans):

I completely understand the desire to hold on, and protect what is yours. I also understand your skepticism in the face of droning governmental warnings and high-tension media hype about approaching storms that never arrive. And, if you have lived through such prognostication for decades, you’ll see my skepticism, and raise me a “get off my lawn!” I get it.

But you people need to get out of town. Now.

Category 4 Hurricane Gustav is spinning toward a gulf near you, and he has already bitch-slapped the Caribbean at Category 1. If he’s anything like his sister, Katrina, you all need to listen to that New Orleans mayor – yes, the one who veers from passion to political within a sentence – and evacuate. Take the buses. Take the trains. Take the cars (yes, even with these gas prices). Go to a shelter. Go see a friend. Go see your aunt. Come see me – I have a spare bedroom. If you go, the worst that can happen is you spend the Labor Day Holiday with strangers – or, even someone outside of your family. If you stay, the worst that can happen is that I see your dead carcass floating by Anderson Cooper’s canoe on national TV.

Sue me, if I speak from a selfish point of view. I just cannot stand another disaster, where people suffer because we all just didn’t get our act together. They say we learned from the last one, that we have implemented better evacuation procedures, better shelter facilities, and better communications. Arkansas has EMS units lined up to take evacuated hospital patients to safety. I believe them. I don’t think they could repeat the travesty of Katrina if they created a special commission. Oh, wait …

Anyway.

Go, people, go. Run away. Save yourselves. Even if you survived the last one on Ring Dings® and hot Gatorade® in your attic. Secure your stuff. Board up your windows. Grab your Granny. Screw waiting on a bridge for the cavalry to bring water. No waiting around for Loot Night. And, you tourists: no drinking it out in the French Quarter. There is no such thing as Disas-tourism. Just, go. And, for God’s sake, take your pets! No more already-traumatized children crying for their dogs. Go. Please. For me.

Except you folks in the bayous. You take better care of yourselves than we ever could. But, before you fade up river, could you help out those old ladies stuck in the Chrysler 300?

Thanks.