The cartoon above isn't so much a joke as an accurate depiction of what happened at stately Jarlsberg Mansion last Friday.
In other parts of the country, Spring may be heralded by crocuses blooming and robins appearing. But here in Texas, it's not officially Spring until the tornado warning sirens go off.
Happily we did not get hit by an actual tornado, but we still had some excitement when our home was barraged with the largest hail we've ever personally laid our eyes on...
In the picture above, the image on the left was a hole in the storm clouds rotating ominously right over our house. To fully appreciate the butt-cranching nature of this image, you should imagine the sound of the aforementioned sirens (and an echoing amplified voice repeating "tornado! tornado!") and imagine the great feeling of knowing that you don't have a basement to hide in.
Seriously, basements simply aren't a thing you can have here. Builders claim it's because the clay soils expand and contract too much, but we think it's more of a Texas attitude thing: who but a pussy hat-wearing milquetoast needs to hide from weather when you can just face it down John Wayne-style?
Shortly after the swirling picture was taken, the sky decided to go ahead and kill anyone stupid enough to still be standing in their yard. See those hailstones? They're big, but they were even bigger when they first hurtled out of the sky and started destroying whatever they hit. Trust us, when these things are still falling you do not want to run out into the yard to gather souvenirs.
We think we got off pretty lucky: we had a skylight shattered by a direct hit, and we may or may not need the roof re-shingled (we're waiting for an inspection). But on the plus side, we got free sky ice to put in our scotch.
BONUS: THE SHIRT HITS THE FANS
At one time or another, we've all asked ourselves the same question: "How can I quickly offend others without time-wasting conversation?"
The answer is here, courtesy of our all-new, Amazon-exclusive Johnny Optimism t-shirt! Available in a rainbow of colors (assuming that the rainbow only has 5 colors and one of them is black) and both men's and women's styles (not that we mean to be binary gender normative), Johnny's bittersweet sense of carpe diem is sure to put a smile on the face of anyone who should probably be both medicated and supervised.
Besides being a handsome addition to your wardrobe, the t-shirt is also a perfect gift for anyone who you'd like to render speechless or a lovely "get well" present for anyone who hasn't picked up on your previous passive-aggressive remarks.
So now that we've got Johnny in the marketplace, what should come next? Anyone up for a Stilton's Place shirt? How about a patriotic design featuring Busty Ross?
Seriously, this isn't about making money so much as just having a little fun (hey, if we were smart about business, this wouldn't be a free site).
To order a shirt, just click on one of the links above - or do an Amazon search for "Johnny Optimism." Even if you're not buying, it will be fun to confuse Amazon's algorithms!