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I swear I’m not making this up - honest!

I’m up in Joliett, Illinois this week, and sure enough wild weather followed me yet again! Oh, the flight touched down OK (although it was a mite bumpy - meaning moments of free fall followed by moments of hard climb, then rinse and repeat), but when I left O’Hare to head south on 294, all I could see was this giant black mass of clouds laced with bolts of lightning, right in my path. Sheesh, not again!

It took me almost two hours to make what would normally be about a one-hour trip, and once I got to the hotel, I was pretty much ready to stay in for the evening. Probably lucky thing I did, too - the next day folks at the plant told me a tornado had gone by just south of where I am right now! I don’t know about you, but I hate it when that happens!

Yep, it’s happened to me more than once (but you probably knew that already, right?)

Back in 1990, Mrs. MZM and I had just relocated to Austin, Texas to work on a semiconductor project for Motorola when a similar thing happened. We’d just moved into a second-floor apartment on Research Boulevard when the weather started getting really ugly. In fact, it quickly got so dark the street lights came on.

Then the rain started falling. No kidding; it was like a dam burst! The pounding on the roof was so loud (we were on the top floor) we could hardly hear ourselves think. And talk about windy! I thought the trees were going to snap, they were waving around so much.

Eventually though, things calmed down a bit; but then we had another problem - the roof leaked (sound of Chinese water torture). We had buckets, pots, pans - pretty much anything we could find - parked everywhere. Talk about a big mess.

But it wasn’t until the next day we found out a tornado had touched down nearby! In fact, in tracing its path, we discovered the disturbing news that it had drawn a line right toward us, lifted off about a half mile away, gone over us, then touched down again about a half mile up the road and kept going for another mile or so.

Now that was too close for comfort!

I don’t know - that sort of thing kinda makes me think (sound of gears grinding). There we were, supposedly snug as a bug in a rug in our apartment (I mean, other than the leaky roof), and all the while completely unaware of potential disaster right above us!

OK class - it’s parable time! Yep, we’ve done this once before, and it’s time to do it again. So here’s how it works.

Let’s consider this story a modern-day parable. That’s where, instead of me telling you the lesson learned, I turn it around and let you guys tell me. Feel free to be as literal or as metaphorical as you want; as long-winded or as brief as you need; even post the answer on your own blog if you like. Just… consider the story above, then answer this question:

What life lesson could you draw from this story?

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