Tornado Warning at Taco Bell

Y’all thought I was all about reading and reviewing books here, didn’t you? Surprise! I occasionally take a stab at writing something other than a blog. Most recently, I entered the NYC Midnight 250-word microfiction competition.

For those of you not familiar with this competition, applicants are divided into groups, and each group is assigned a genre, an action, and a word. You then have 24 hours to write and submit your 250-word microfiction work.

This year, my genre was comedy, my action was ordering from a drive-thru, and my word was “rich.” I’m seldom intentionally funny, so I was kind of nervous about comedy, but figured I’d write what I know. I hear that’s something that works well.

The results came out tonight. Alas, I did not move on to round two. But that’s okay. It was still fun, and I’ll try again next time. Maybe I should try something a bit longer than microfiction? Nah, I’m not sure I have the ability to keep a story straight for longer than that.

Here it is, in all its glory (or not)!

Tornado Warning at Taco Bell

“I’d like a chalupa box, five crunchy tacos, a quesarito, and a large Mountain Dew Baja Blast.” Good grief, a teenage boy eats a lot, I thought.

“Thank you, please pull forward,” came the muffled response from the speaker.

ENGH! ENGH! ENGH! The emergency alert blared just as the car started to move.

“Tornado warning for…”

We held our breath.

“Iberville Parish.”

“Oh, crap,” cried my son. “Why did I have to want Taco Bell today?! We’re gonna die because I had to have Taco Bell!”

We pulled up to the window (because I’d paid for Taco Bell, and I wasn’t rich, so we were going to get Taco Bell, tornado warning be hanged).

“Can you drive around front and park? We’ll bring your food out.”

“Of course they’d say that today! Don’t they listen to the weather?!” Trying to lighten the mood, I said, “Just think, son, we’re making memories!”

“Memories?!” he scoffed. “Oh, yeah, I can tell my kids how I nearly died for Taco Bell. That’ll be great.” But he snickered, just a little. Then his face turned the color of sour cream.

“Mom. Don’t they say tornadoes sound like a train?”

“Ye-es….” Then I heard it, too. It had to be right on top of us. No time to take cover. The car started to shake.

BR-AAAAAAAAAP. Silence. Then, holy cow, the stank.

“Sorry, Mom,” he said as he rolled down his window. “Guess I didn’t hear a tornado after all.”