Things Learned from Hurricanes

• A new opening phrase when seeing someone: "Got lights yet?"

• Coffee is possible without Starbucks.

• Frozen pizzas can be made on a barbecue grill, and Hot Pockets taste pretty good deep-fried on an outdoor cooker'

• Peanut butter and jelly is a perfectly acceptable meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the same day.

• There are a lot more stars in the sky than most people think.

• There are a lot of dang trees around here.

• Tree-service companies are underappreciated.

• Cell phones work when land lines are down, but only as long as the battery remains charged.

• The neighbor who knows how to use a chainsaw is your new best friend.

• If you fill the bathtub with water, as advised, the city water system will not fail or be turned off.

• Floodplain drawings on some mortgage documents are seriously wrong.

• People will get into a line that has already formed without having any idea what the line is for.

• Our car gets 23.21675 miles per gali;n, exactly. You can ask the people in line who helped us push it.

• We can walk a lot farther than we thought.

• TV is an addiction and the withdrawal symptoms are painful.

• A 7-pound bag of ice will chill 6, 12-ounce Budweisers to a drinkable temperature in 11 minutes, and still keep a14-pound turkey frozen for eight hours.

• Math 101: 30 days in month minus 12 days without power equals a 30 percent higher electric bill?

• Drywall is a compound word; take away the "dry" part and it's worthless.

• Ice is a form of currency.

• Two-year-old canned beets taste better than you think.

• A skateboard and a sheet make a great "sailboat" before the rain starts.

• Five gallons of sweetened iced tea a day is not enough for nine teenagers.

• Neighbors are much more sociable when they are sharing a generator.

• Seven dogs that do not normally live together will not get along during a hurricane. They have no comprehension of sharing.

• A new method of non-lethal torture-showers without hot water.

• What appears acceptable by candlelight in your bathroom will scare you when you look at yourself in the mirror at the office.

• Hair can dry without a blow-dryer, but it may not look the way you planned.

• The storm treasures your kids are finding really belong to your neighbors.

• It's easy to ignore a dirty floor when you can't see it.

• You can't train yourself,not to flip on light switches,when entering a room.

• Baseball caps go with any post-hurricane ensemble.

• Coming home from work with a pizza and a charged-up laptop so the kids can watch a DVD makes you a hero.

• Never make fun of another state's blackouts.

• You have neighbors.

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