Trapped By Tornado
Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2022 11:04 am
Trapped By Tornado
Chapter 1.
Everyone remembers their first job. For some it's being a lifeguard. For others it's a paper route. My first job was
delivering pizzas. I was just 15 years old and didn't even have a drivers permit. I didn't need a permit or a car to
deliver the pizzas. I rode my bicycle. This was back in the 90s. Pizza places didn't have that "Delivered in exactly
nineteen minutes and twenty-two seconds" crap.
I had an extra big wire basket on the front of the bike. It was wide enough to place the pizza boxes flat. I admit it
was sometimes exhausting, pedaling around the suburbs from 5 to 8pm on a Friday, Noon till 3 pm on Sundays. That's
all I could do delivering by bike, a three hour shift. I had a plan to be a competitive cyclist, so I was making some
money while training.
I started to pick up a pattern to what houses ordered for pizzas on Friday nights, or the Sunday afternoons. Some
houses I delivered to every Friday night, for two months straight. I could nearly plan out my route, knowing in
advance which houses will be ordering. The Friday nighters were very consistent. Not so much consistency on the
Sunday afternoon shift. There was one house that was regular, one house that ordered pizza every Sunday afternoon,
the Mason house.
The Mason house was one of the farthest away on my routes. Mrs. Mason worked at the airport and Mr. Mason is a
pilot flying the big ones. The Masons have a big house, two stories and an attic, swimming pool in the backyard.
Sometimes there would be a note on the front door "Come round to the pool". I would carry the pizzas round the house
to find Randy age 12, and Mandy age 11, in the pool with their mom. Sometimes a group of other kids would be over.
Every time I delivered to the Mason house when a pool party has started, I so much wanted to take off my shoes and
shirt, to join the laughing and shouting kids as they played Marco Polo or some other silly game. Dropping the pizzas
on a table near the pool, Mrs. Mason would pay me and give me a tip. Mrs. Mason takes the money out, counts it out
for me, then puts the bills into the front pocket of my cutoff jeans shorts herself. The jean shorts are a tight fit,
so she has to work her hand for several seconds just to slide her hand down. I was afraid Mrs. Mason might find more
than just change in my pocket.
Randy and Mandy are always nice and friendly, saying "HI" and "BYE" whenever they see me. The two kids are in a
swim club and Randy wears a speedo. The other boys I saw over there wore regular swim trunks. Mandy doesn't
wear her swim club suit during these pool parties. She wears a bikini. I never saw Mr. Mason. He flies to LA on
Sundays. Maybe that's why Mrs. Mason parties on Sundays.
Now on this particular day, I bike over to the Mason house with two pizzas in my basket. It's 1 pm but it's not getting
hot. Not hot after Noon, on a July day isn't normal. For some reason I'm wearing full length jeans instead of my
jeans shorts. I don't remember why. I see terrible dark clouds moving in, clouds that are stacked up high in the
sky mixed with shades of charcoal and ashes. The wind is picking up.
"Oh shit, there's gonna be a storm", I tried to pedal faster. What came even faster was more wind. The clouds are
over my head, directly up. How did it all move so fast? Rain starts coming down, a little at first, then pouring
down. I'm getting soaked. The pizzas are gonna get soaked. You can't eat pizza drenched with rain water.
I can pedal without my hands easily and I let go of the handlebars, but try to balance a moving bike while taking
a shirt off. I nearly wrecked. I threw my shirt over the pizza boxes and spread it out, hoping it would make a
difference in how quickly the cardboard boxes get soaked through.
Thunder cracks overhead and the sound must have opened the heavens up. Hail starts falling. First there are some
pellets, then marble sized hail pounds me. Fortunately, I'm now at the Mason house. I pull up into the driveway
and notice there isn't a car. I've never seen their driveway without a car. I get off the bike and walk it down a
sidewalk to the front porch. I park the bike on the porch. I shake my hair, which is shoulder length, to get some
of the water off. Picking up the pizza boxes, I leave my shirt in the basket. I carry the pizzas to the front door
and ring the doorbell. A moment later the door opens and 11 year old Mandy stands there, wearing her bikini.
"Hi Mandy. Is your mother home? I didn't see a car in the driveway."
"No, she's not here. We do have the money for the pizzas" Mandy says, taking a closer look at me.
I realized I don't have my shirt on. Sometimes I ride the bike with the shirt off, but I don't deliver to the door without
my shirt on. I guess that would be considered unprofessional.
"You got caught in the storm. Did you get hailed on? Did it hurt?"
"It did hurt a little on top of my head" I said.
"You should come in till the storm is over" Mandy says.
I looked behind me. The hail is coming down in larger size stones. Chunks of ice are hitting the street.
There is no way I can ride a bike through that. I turn back toward Mandy. "Thank you. I will come in."
Mandy steps back and I enter the house with the pizzas. Mandy closes and locks the door.
"Just show me where you want these" I tell her, and Mandy leads the way. Entering the living room I see
Randy sitting in a beanbag chair in front of the tv. Looks like he's playing a Nintendo game.
"Put the pizzas on that coffee table" Mandy says, pointing to the table in front of the couch.
I walk to the coffee table and put down the two boxes and they are totally soaked. I check to see if the coffee
table top is waterproof and it looks that way, being all glass. I look down to see my jeans are fully soaked.
My butt feels a little squishy as the water has seeped down there too. I step closer to the tv set and I can see
Randy isn't wearing a shirt and his legs are bare. The large Nintendo controller covers his crotch, his arms
at each side of the controller. I can't tell if Randy is wearing anything or not.
"Hello Randy" I say.
Randy pauses the game, puts the controller aside, and gets out of the beanbag chair. He is wearing his speedo.
"Hi Jason" Randy says to me, as he walks over to look at the pizza boxes. He laughs when he sees how wet they are.
"You guys must have been getting ready to jump into the pool" I said.
"We were, till this happened" says Mandy
The phone rings in the kitchen. Randy walks into the kitchen and answers it. A couple minutes later he is back.
"Mom says she can't leave the airport. The airport is shutting down. The weather might get worse and force her
to be there a while. I told her Jason showed up with the food. Mom says Jason can stay here to be safe".
Randy looks over at me.
"Are you going to stay?"
I listen to the pounding hail outside. I can see the swimming pool through a large window. The splashes of hail
hitting the water is spectacular.
"Yes. I'll be staying till this storm is over."
Chapter 1.
Everyone remembers their first job. For some it's being a lifeguard. For others it's a paper route. My first job was
delivering pizzas. I was just 15 years old and didn't even have a drivers permit. I didn't need a permit or a car to
deliver the pizzas. I rode my bicycle. This was back in the 90s. Pizza places didn't have that "Delivered in exactly
nineteen minutes and twenty-two seconds" crap.
I had an extra big wire basket on the front of the bike. It was wide enough to place the pizza boxes flat. I admit it
was sometimes exhausting, pedaling around the suburbs from 5 to 8pm on a Friday, Noon till 3 pm on Sundays. That's
all I could do delivering by bike, a three hour shift. I had a plan to be a competitive cyclist, so I was making some
money while training.
I started to pick up a pattern to what houses ordered for pizzas on Friday nights, or the Sunday afternoons. Some
houses I delivered to every Friday night, for two months straight. I could nearly plan out my route, knowing in
advance which houses will be ordering. The Friday nighters were very consistent. Not so much consistency on the
Sunday afternoon shift. There was one house that was regular, one house that ordered pizza every Sunday afternoon,
the Mason house.
The Mason house was one of the farthest away on my routes. Mrs. Mason worked at the airport and Mr. Mason is a
pilot flying the big ones. The Masons have a big house, two stories and an attic, swimming pool in the backyard.
Sometimes there would be a note on the front door "Come round to the pool". I would carry the pizzas round the house
to find Randy age 12, and Mandy age 11, in the pool with their mom. Sometimes a group of other kids would be over.
Every time I delivered to the Mason house when a pool party has started, I so much wanted to take off my shoes and
shirt, to join the laughing and shouting kids as they played Marco Polo or some other silly game. Dropping the pizzas
on a table near the pool, Mrs. Mason would pay me and give me a tip. Mrs. Mason takes the money out, counts it out
for me, then puts the bills into the front pocket of my cutoff jeans shorts herself. The jean shorts are a tight fit,
so she has to work her hand for several seconds just to slide her hand down. I was afraid Mrs. Mason might find more
than just change in my pocket.
Randy and Mandy are always nice and friendly, saying "HI" and "BYE" whenever they see me. The two kids are in a
swim club and Randy wears a speedo. The other boys I saw over there wore regular swim trunks. Mandy doesn't
wear her swim club suit during these pool parties. She wears a bikini. I never saw Mr. Mason. He flies to LA on
Sundays. Maybe that's why Mrs. Mason parties on Sundays.
Now on this particular day, I bike over to the Mason house with two pizzas in my basket. It's 1 pm but it's not getting
hot. Not hot after Noon, on a July day isn't normal. For some reason I'm wearing full length jeans instead of my
jeans shorts. I don't remember why. I see terrible dark clouds moving in, clouds that are stacked up high in the
sky mixed with shades of charcoal and ashes. The wind is picking up.
"Oh shit, there's gonna be a storm", I tried to pedal faster. What came even faster was more wind. The clouds are
over my head, directly up. How did it all move so fast? Rain starts coming down, a little at first, then pouring
down. I'm getting soaked. The pizzas are gonna get soaked. You can't eat pizza drenched with rain water.
I can pedal without my hands easily and I let go of the handlebars, but try to balance a moving bike while taking
a shirt off. I nearly wrecked. I threw my shirt over the pizza boxes and spread it out, hoping it would make a
difference in how quickly the cardboard boxes get soaked through.
Thunder cracks overhead and the sound must have opened the heavens up. Hail starts falling. First there are some
pellets, then marble sized hail pounds me. Fortunately, I'm now at the Mason house. I pull up into the driveway
and notice there isn't a car. I've never seen their driveway without a car. I get off the bike and walk it down a
sidewalk to the front porch. I park the bike on the porch. I shake my hair, which is shoulder length, to get some
of the water off. Picking up the pizza boxes, I leave my shirt in the basket. I carry the pizzas to the front door
and ring the doorbell. A moment later the door opens and 11 year old Mandy stands there, wearing her bikini.
"Hi Mandy. Is your mother home? I didn't see a car in the driveway."
"No, she's not here. We do have the money for the pizzas" Mandy says, taking a closer look at me.
I realized I don't have my shirt on. Sometimes I ride the bike with the shirt off, but I don't deliver to the door without
my shirt on. I guess that would be considered unprofessional.
"You got caught in the storm. Did you get hailed on? Did it hurt?"
"It did hurt a little on top of my head" I said.
"You should come in till the storm is over" Mandy says.
I looked behind me. The hail is coming down in larger size stones. Chunks of ice are hitting the street.
There is no way I can ride a bike through that. I turn back toward Mandy. "Thank you. I will come in."
Mandy steps back and I enter the house with the pizzas. Mandy closes and locks the door.
"Just show me where you want these" I tell her, and Mandy leads the way. Entering the living room I see
Randy sitting in a beanbag chair in front of the tv. Looks like he's playing a Nintendo game.
"Put the pizzas on that coffee table" Mandy says, pointing to the table in front of the couch.
I walk to the coffee table and put down the two boxes and they are totally soaked. I check to see if the coffee
table top is waterproof and it looks that way, being all glass. I look down to see my jeans are fully soaked.
My butt feels a little squishy as the water has seeped down there too. I step closer to the tv set and I can see
Randy isn't wearing a shirt and his legs are bare. The large Nintendo controller covers his crotch, his arms
at each side of the controller. I can't tell if Randy is wearing anything or not.
"Hello Randy" I say.
Randy pauses the game, puts the controller aside, and gets out of the beanbag chair. He is wearing his speedo.
"Hi Jason" Randy says to me, as he walks over to look at the pizza boxes. He laughs when he sees how wet they are.
"You guys must have been getting ready to jump into the pool" I said.
"We were, till this happened" says Mandy
The phone rings in the kitchen. Randy walks into the kitchen and answers it. A couple minutes later he is back.
"Mom says she can't leave the airport. The airport is shutting down. The weather might get worse and force her
to be there a while. I told her Jason showed up with the food. Mom says Jason can stay here to be safe".
Randy looks over at me.
"Are you going to stay?"
I listen to the pounding hail outside. I can see the swimming pool through a large window. The splashes of hail
hitting the water is spectacular.
"Yes. I'll be staying till this storm is over."