Tornado kisses from Pickles

I've lived in Kansas for all but six months of my life. 

Yesterday was the first time I've ever seen a tornado.

It went something like this:

I was getting ready to shut my brain and my computer down for the day at work. My phone was buzzing with weather warnings for a few minutes, and finally I saw that we were in a tornado warning.

I walked into a co-workers office, and asked if this tornado warning was something we needed to be worried about.

Sometimes, we'll have warnings, even though a tornado is in the same county but moving away from town.

My co-worker looked out her office window: "Oh, do you mean that tornado?"

Why yes, yes I do mean that tornado. And the fact that I can see it means I'm worried about it.

I did what any other normal Kansan would do in that situation - I went outside and looked at it. In the span of a few minutes, the tornado grew in size. (See the photo above vs. the photo below)

As someone else outside pointed out, it was getting bigger and heading straight towards us. 

At that point, I noped out of there, went home, threw my dogs and my purse in the basement, and decided I had enough time to put my car in the garage. 

While I was doing this, I got a frantic phone call from my aunt: "Get your dogs and go to your basement now."

It wasn't so much a request, as it was a warning. My aunt works in the south part of town, just as I do, and she watched the tornado grow just like I did. 

That tornado fizzled out, which made me laugh later in the night. I went from OH MY GOD to dude, let's chill out and watch the rain in a matter of minutes.

It's one thing to go into your basement because of radar indicated rotation; it's quite another thing to go into your basement because you see a tornado coming for your part of town. 

The only thing the tornado did was scare the poop out of my dogs. (Literally.)

Sorry, dogs. I would have left you out longer at noon had I known there would be a tornado at 5 p.m. which would interrupt your afternoon poop break.

We lived. 

Penny's "Seriously, a tornado?" face after we came upstairs.

Tornado kisses from Pickles in the basement.