"I totally thought we were going to get tornado'd!"

Last night Ethan had a soccer game that was two-and-a-half hours away. (Luckily, that kind of travel isn’t the norm, even for us crazy soccer schedule folks). He and I rode to the game together – five hours of good ol’ mom/son time.

As we drove out of the city and headed to the game, we remarked on our good fortune that it was a perfect, sunny, 76 degree day. “I sure wouldn’t want to drive so far and deal with bad weather,” I commented. Hello, Karmic Forces/Knock-on-Wood Patrol? I’m looking for trouble here. Come and get me!

Flash forward about three hours as sirens are sounding and the spectators for both teams have their backs to the playing field, all eyes fixed on a dark green, rotating cloud that appeared to me to be a mere 50 yards overhead. Soon after we spotted the funnel cloud-wannabe it started to rain – the kind of sideways sheets of rain that make drivers pull over on highways – and I ran for the van. The players stayed on the field, getting pelted by hail for a few minutes. The worst part was, I had to pee really bad. I called Randy and mentioned that death either by tornado or a burst bladder was imminent.

“Isn’t there a bathroom anywhere?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I’m not going in there during a tornado!” I pictured Dorothy, trapped in Auntie Em’s house, except I’d be getting thrown around a Port-a-Potty. Nope. Better to pee in my pants.

Eventually the really menacing cloud moved past, and I high-tailed it through the rain to the “facilities.” Meanwhile, the rain appeared to be causing Ethan’s already-short soccer socks to shrink down to toddler-size right there on his hairy teenager legs. (Socks have been a struggle for most of his season. His team's socks are bright yellow, but for some reason his pair faded to a light "green cheese" color after the first wash. The other moms must think I use bleach in every load. Last night he decided to bring a pair of gold socks we had in the house to the game, but when we got to the field and he put them on, his size 12 foot took up half of the sock length. Besides causing his socks to shrivel even further down his calves, the rain turned the gold color a dark orange. Any hope of not calling attention to the fact that his shin guards weren't sufficiently covered was lost).

The rain and dropping temps didn't exactly bring out the Bear Grylls in Ethan's soccer play - more like can I have a sweater and a parasol? The game finally ended almost an hour after it was scheduled to, after rain, hail and lightning delays. The score? A whopping 7-1 (or uh, 1-7 from Ethan's team's perspective). We began the two-and-a-half hour drive back home. Ethan said, "When I was on the bench I couldn't even take my eyes off that one cloud to watch the game. I totally thought we were going to get tornado'd!"