22 Reasons Hurricanes are Awesome!

Hurricane season is here and while most people dread this time of year, I actually look forward to it! Only a true Floridian or hurricane veteran can understand the benefits of going through a hurricane as I’ve listed out for you below. If these “22 Reasons Hurricanes are Awesome” don’t make you want to pack up and move to Florida, I don’t know what will!

22 Reasons Hurricanes are Awesome!

1 – Staycation: Going through a hurricane is basically like taking a vacation at home. Except for all the doomsday prepping of course. You don’t have to work since EVERYTHING is closed. Some people work through the hurricane (nurses, emergency response teams, police officers, etc.) because they just LOVE being away from their families and helping strangers out so much. So it’s a win-win, right? Besides, you don’t want to use your vacation time for an actual vacation, do you?

2 – Stay or Go?: Do you love being torn between life-altering decisions? The most fun part of a hurricane is trying to decide whether or not to evacuate. If you do evacuate early enough, the hurricane will probably change course and head to your “new” location. If you evacuate later, then you get to be stuck in traffic for hours on end. Of course, this is way more enjoyable when you have young children in the vehicle with you.

3 – Hurricane Parties: Looking for a reason to throw a party? Well, now you can throw the best Hurricane Party this season! You can even get a Hurricane Cake from your local grocery store. Don’t forget your hurricane themed drinks, decorations and music playlist!

4 – Boredom: Hurricanes are really awesome if you are just bored with your life and are looking for a spontaneous way to mix things up. Hate all your plans, appointments and commitments? Well, hurricanes put EVERYTHING on hold so you will have that much more to contend with afterward. While trying to rebuild your home, you can rebuild your life. Because you didn’t have enough going on already!

5 – Spending Money: Hurricanes mean that you can basically go on a shopping spree for unnecessary things like water (who drinks that stuff anyway?), plywood, wing nuts (is that like a cashew?), batteries, flashlights, unperishable food items, and generators (if you’re highfalutin). If you evacuate you also get to spend all of your ‘extra’ money on hotels and travel expenses.

6 – Unsolicited Advice: Everyone will have an opinion of what you should do in the event of a hurricane. As if you weren’t panicked enough, they will make you second guess your decisions. Some people will tell you “Stay! What are you afraid of? We’ll be fine!” while the next person says “Run like hell! Why would you want to go through that anyway?” There is no in between! Make sure to listen to other people instead of doing what’s best for you and your family.

7 – Waiting: If you are sooo patient that you love to wait in really long lines for things like fuel, groceries, plywood, water and other everyday necessities, then hurricanes are right up your alley. Enjoy the wait.

8 – Anger Management: You get to be mean and act like a jerk because everyone else is doing it! You can be especially mean to the people who are working up to the last day before the hurricane because they ran out of the item you wanted. Even though you’re the one who waited until the last minute to get it. It’s their fault anyway.

9 – Panic and Sleep Deprivation: During a hurricane, you must go into a full panic mode in order to survive. Seriously stressing out over every single detail and decision is the only way to manage. You will learn to function on little to no sleep as the anxiety sets in. This is also a very useful skill to have if you’re thinking about having kids because you’ll never sleep again.

10 – Mapping: You will learn how to read all the Hurricane tracking maps and charts and that none of them really matter anyway because no one knows what the ‘F’ is going on until the last minute and then you’re screwed. You also learn the differences between the Hurricane categories 1 through 5.

11 – Chores: Hurricanes are great for getting your spouse to actually take out the trash and do yard work! Although this isn’t a guarantee. Plus your community may not even pick-up on trash day depending on how close the hurricane is to your town. Hey, at least the work is done and if you wait late enough to do your tree-trimming and it doesn’t get picked up, the branches will simply turn into high projectile missiles. Fun right?

12 – Alpha Dog: Finding out who the Alpha Dog is in your family can be very rewarding…especially if it’s you! This will be discovered when debating over whether or not to evacuate, when to put up shutters, and whether or not you have enough supplies to endure the aftermath of the storm. Fifteen cases of beer should get you through a week but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

13 – Organizing: Love to organize but just never get around to doing it? Good news! The hurricane helps you get all sorts of organizing done! You even get to organize your Tupperware containers while filling each one of them with water to put in the freezer because every store you went to was out of ice.

14 – Supplies: You also get to sort your batteries and flashlights. More fun until realizing you’re all out of batteries and none of your flashlights work anymore. Yay! Time to go shopping…again.

15 – Exercise: Go ahead and cancel your gym membership because you’ll get all the exercise you need this hurricane season. Exercises include putting up shutters, bringing all patio furniture and plants inside, running around town in search of supplies, doing yard work, pruning trees and then doing it all over again once the storm passes. Don’t worry though, you won’t lose any weight with all the hurricane snacks you bought!

16 – Food Prep: First, you get to organize your food supply in the fridge, freezer, and cupboards to see if you have enough to live off of for a few days or possibly weeks. Then you can scour Pinterest for fun “camping” style recipes to bring out the MacGyver-Top Chef in you!

17 – Cleaning: Do you love cleaning your house just so it can get messed up again? A lot of people clean their house right before a hurricane because who wants to sit in a dirty house with no power? Not me. The good news is the house will continue to get trashed as you track in dirt from outside. No running water means you can’t do dishes, clean, or even bathe. So lucky you! Once the power comes back on, you will have so much cleaning to do!

18 – Hygiene: Speaking of bathing, there won’t be much of that after the hurricane. Just think of all the time you’ll save. You’ll get really good at sponge bathing too. This is also the perfect time to test out the staying power of your deodorant.

19 – Naps: Naps are the best when you have shutters up and the house is completely dark 24/7. You will have plenty of time for naps in between feeding your family, cleaning, and explaining to your kids for the 87^th time that they can’t play outside because there could be downed power lines! Naps are great too as long as you don’t mind sweating in your sleep because it’s 95 degrees at night and then pulling the sheets off of you like plastic wrap.

20 – Camping: Love camping but just can’t seem to find time for it? No worries! The hurricane will bring the camping to you! You can camp in your own backyard because the house will be too hot without A/C! You’ll also need to cook everything you eat over an open flame or the BBQ grill! S’mores anyone?

21 – Renovations: Do you hate your house and just wish you could start from scratch? Maybe you just want to get a new fence or roof. A hurricane could take care of that for you. It could even leave you homeless with absolutely nothing. How’s that for a fresh start?

22 – Bragging Rights: One of the best things about going through a hurricane is getting to brag about it afterward. The more damage your house sustained, the more bragging rights you have. Wait times add points to your bragging rights too. Whoever waited the longest in lines or took the longest amount of time to drive the shortest distance wins! Pretty cool right? Plus you’ll always have a great story to tell at parties from now on.

So if the Sunshine State hasn’t won you over yet, you probably just aren’t a fun-loving and spontaneous person! However, if these “22 Reasons Hurricanes are Awesome” sound like a good time to you, then come on down! We’ll save you a beer! Just kidding! I only have 5 cases and this hurricane party is BYOB. See you soon! Cheers!

*Please note this post is my attempt at light humor in the very serious and life-threatening situation of a hurricane. I take all hurricanes seriously and am only trying to lighten the mood while we await the impending doom of Hurricane Irma. Please don’t send me hate mail. TIA!