Bad weather warning

You remember that cold spell we had week before last? Yeah, how could you forget? When the thermometer dips that far, you begin to worry about things.

“I hope I buried that water line deep enough…I hope that driving over it all winter hasn’t caused a frost penetration zone…I hope we drained the sprinkler lines well enough… I hope that the main water line that goes along the north wall doesn’t freeze and break…I hope the truck will start in the morning.” You know.

Well, during one of those days when -12 was the daytime high, We started hearing a funny noise. The first time we heard it, we thought that a pile of snow fell on the deck or something, but it hadn’t. We soon forgot all about it.

Half an hour later, we heard it again, a definite “whoosh-sh-sh.” The cold-weather worries began to set in this time. Mr. B. thought it might be water gushing out of a pipe. But it only lasted for a second or two and it was gone.

Nevertheless, he got on his coat and boots and went outside. He checked all of the hose bibs, he walked through the garage, he listened to the well pump. He came back inside and checked the pressure tank and the water heaters and the water softener and the washer and dryer.

Then we heard the phantom noise again, even louder at that end of the house. Maybe the waterline to the washer was getting kinked. Maybe a large family of bats moved into the crawl space.

The neighbors came over to visit about the weather. We were just getting “warmed up” with our coldest-day-of-the-year stories, when we all heard the “pshooosh.”
“What was that?” Fred hollered, jumping out of his chair. “It doesn’t sound good, whatever it is.” “Did a tree branch fall on the roof or something?”

“We can’t figure it out. We keep hearing it, and it is driving us crazy. What does it sound like to you?” Well, we waited and waited for another eruption, but it never came and finally the neighbors left. Gratefully, nothing had blown up. We didn’t know whether our homeowner’s insurance covered the roof falling in on top of the neighbors.

Mr. B. was starting to sweat now though. He took off a layer of clothing and began to pace and fret. “All I need is for the pressure tank to blow up or something,” he mutters.

He sits down and tries to watch the basketball game, but he’s back up again looking out the windows, listening to the walls.

I decide it is going to be best to keep out of his way, so I hole up in the office and start a computer project. I remember a phone call I need to make, so I am sitting there chatting when the ghost explosion erupts right in my left ear.

I jump a foot, drop the cordless, and commence yelling. I thought I had been shot at and hit. And there sits the computer, monitor, speakers and all, as impassive and unconcerned as only a pile of nuts, bolts and circuit boards can be.

I scramble to pick up the phone from the floor and compose myself. My heart rate is dangerously high, and I am starting to flush for all sorts of reasons.
“What was that,” Julia on the other end of the line keeps repeating. “Are you all right?”

Mr. B. comes running in to see what hit me.

“It was what?” Julia can’t quite grasp what I’m babbling about and neither can Mr. B.
“It was the Weather Channel on my desktop. It thinks a storm is coming, so it is thundering.”

“Does it think that the perfect storm is in a funnel cloud right above our house? Or does it think we are deaf? Either way, it is wrong as usual.”

“Well, when I was trying to listen to that video clip that D.J. e-mailed me, I couldn’t hear the audio, so I turned up the volume. I didn’t know that the Weather Channel was going to override everything else I had going on, and since I hadn’t heard a thunderstorm warning for several months now. I forgot how it sounds.

I don’t think one was necessary the other day either. So, how should a cold snap sound?