Nov 3, 2012 3 min read

Oct. 24, 6:21 p.m.: Frankenstorm is coming. Presumably, this means the storm will play God and be destroyed by its own creation. I mean, if the forecasters intend to say the storm will be a frightening patchwork of violent weather fronts, the more appropriate nomenclature would be Frankenstorm’s monster. English majors 1, meteorologists 0.

Oct. 26, 4:43 p.m.: My eyes are tired of looking at the blue-haired head in front of me, so I examine her purchases. Two boxes of Corn Flakes, two gallons of milk, two loaves of white bread and two packages of toilet paper. The fool doesn’t realize that, in a pinch, the bread can perform double duty as toilet paper. I learned this watching “Man vs. Wild,” except, instead of bread, or toilet paper for that matter, Bear Grylls used the pelt of a muskrat to clean his bathing suit area. The lesson was that absorbency is the key thing in times of emergency.

Oct. 26, 5:38 p.m.: I survey my booty, plundered from the grocery store like so many doubloons and items of men’s hosiery and arrayed across the kitchen table. There is salsa. There are tortilla chips. There is beer. There is bread. So prepared.

Oct. 27, 12:10 a.m.: The tortilla chips are gone. I try to tell myself that this is a good thing. Carbo loading now will give me the strength I need in the coming days to paddle canoes and lift cars off of people. But I can’t let myself believe soothing lies. Things are getting dangerous.

Oct. 28, 3:30 p.m.: It’s raining now. I’ve locked the doors against looters and teenagers. I’m standing vigil at the window as the water streams down the pavement outside. The streets are empty. It is eerie.

Is it somehow over already? Am I the lone survivor?

Oct. 28, 4:22 p.m.: False alarm. A drunk guy wearing a Polamalu jersey just walked by. He saw me looking out the window, so I hid behind the curtain just as he yelled, “Steelers!” How can people care about football on a day like today? The drunken man’s voice echos down the street, portending the ragged vehemence of the approaching storm.

Oct. 29, 5:37 p.m.: The bread is gone. I am hungry, and the toilet is clogged. I never thought it would end like this. I liked to imagine I would die in a comfy chair, surrounded by my family and with the ghosts of my dead pets hovering over me like the grandfather in “Family Circus.” Or I could have just floated away in a hot air balloon. That would have been fun. Funner than this, anyway. At least there’s a little charge left in my iPod.

Oct. 29, 5:42 p.m.: “WATCHIN’ THE FULL MOON CROSSIN’ THE RANGE/RIDIN’ THE STORM OUT/RIDIN’ THE STORM OUT”

Oct. 30, 11:28 a.m.: I’m not sure how I feel about this, but I don’t think I’m dead. It is possible heaven is a three-room apartment that smells like a combination of perspiration and a Sparkling Cinnamon-scented Yankee Candle, but that would be a really striking coincidence. I guess even if I got the toilet paper thing wrong, “Man vs. Wild” did teach me one thing, and that’s never give up, no matter how dire the prospects. It’s a lesson each of us should take to heart as we face life’s post-tropical cyclones, large and small.

Dave Penn is a copy editor for the Observer-Reporter. Contact him at dpenn@observer-reporter.com.