slowly she turned

So, if you were ordered to evacuate and had only five minutes to grab what you could, other than your family and pets, what would you take the precious time to take?

My niece recently had to make that decision and didn’t even have five minutes. She awoke to pounding on her door and her apartment building burning down around her. She grabbed her phone and her dog.

Last night I had an eerie dream. An oil truck pulled up on the street to fill up our tank (in reality, we have natural gas). I walked with the guy to the back of the house and noticed that the neighbor’s tree had fallen down in the back yard. Then I noticed that a huge oak tree had been pulled out of the ground and was hovering, caught in the tops of other trees. At that moment, I thought that I’d better run but before I could, the tree came down on my house, just brushing me with a few branches. Sandy and the cats came struggling out of the wreckage alive and well, somehow. End of dream.

This morning I walked outside to enjoy some non-freezing weather in the Back Forty and was greeted by a very noxious natural gas smell. I called out to a jogger with his dogs running by and he said that the construction company (a.k.a. Edwards Development Company subcontractors) had hit a gas line a block away and that police and firemen were there with masks on.

I didn’t know what to do so I called the gas leak line – it was backed up. I called 911 and asked if I should evacuate. They said that it was under control.

I would have to make a choice with the cats. I have one cat carrier. I would have to put one of the cats in the carrier and carry one. It would probably come down to Miss Jazz and Theo, since they are the easiest ones to catch, but I guess I’d go with whoever I grabbed first for the carrier and carry Miss Jazz. By the time the others caught whiff of my anxiety they would be under the bed and dodging me.

So, I hate to say this, but if I could only grab one item it would probably be this laptop. It contains so many of my photo and writing files. If that wasn’t an option? I really don’t know. Sometimes I’d like to scrap everything and start over in a tiny house with only the essentials.

What one item would you grab as you run out the door?