Hail and the Ensuing Hell

Wow - the weather has really been crazy this Spring.  Monday of last week (the 25th), we had some really bad storms come through Knoxville and the surrounding area.  Luckily, we didn't have any damage at our house, but South Knoxville and the Bearden/Sequoyah Hills area got hit really hard.  Those folks were without power for several days.  THEN on Wednesday night (the 27th), we got WORSE weather.  There were tornado watches and warnings everywhere, and at about 8:30 we got the worst hail storm I have ever seen.  I mean, it POURED hail.  Like a heavy downpour of rain, only with ice cubes instead of rain drops.  That went on for 10-15 minutes.  When it stopped, we went out to survey the damage and found that Ben's 4Runner and my car hauler trailer looked like golf balls.  I tried to take pictures of the top of my car hauler from our living room window (pretty much the only place from which you can see it), but you can't really see the damage because of the screen on our window.  Here are pictures of the 4Runner:

The hood: these dimples are pretty much everywhere, even on the fuel door.



The rain guards on the windows were destroyed.

Our yard and driveway were also covered with hail, and I guess the combination of the ice and the warm air caused this crazy steam-fog that reduced visibility basically to nothing.  Here are some pictures of the yard and driveway:

The road was also covered with hail, and people who were trying to drive on it were sliding around just like there had been a big winter ice storm.  It was insane.  As Ben and I were looking around, I suddenly thought of the poor dog that our across-the-street neighbors had tied to a tree (the one I have found wandering in our yard several times when she gets loose - I'll post more about her later), and I just knew that they wouldn't have brought her in out of the storm.  So my wonderful husband put on his hard hat, hopped in the battered 4Runner (of course, I went with him), and drove up to their house to check on the dog.  As expected, she was still tied to the tree, with no shelter, and was terrified.  We loaded her up in the 4Runner and brought her to our house, where she dried out and relaxed in our laundry room (my elderly dog doesn't get along with other female dogs, so she couldn't come in the house).  She was very lucky we came to get her, because we had another 10-15 minute downpour of hail about a half hour later.  Again, more about the dog in a later post.

The hail punched holes in the top of our outdoor utility box in which we keep our patio furniture cushions.  That's some really hard plastic, and the hail broke right through it.  More about this later.  Here's a picture:

By the way, all the black spots on the box are the gritty stuff off of our shingles.  That stuff was covering our deck, and when I was sweeping off the deck on Friday, I also found several big chunks of broken shingles.  I'm fairly certain we'll end up having to have our roof replaced.  All in all, though, we got pretty lucky compared to the people in Alabama and in other parts of Tennessee who lost their homes and even their lives.

I promised more about the utility box, so here goes: if you are a child or do not want to read profanity, you should stop reading here.

I decided to run to Target tonight and see if they had the boxes in stock so I could get a new one.  Turns out they did, indeed, have them in stock.  They come unassembled, of course, in huge boxes that are approximately 4 1/2 feet long and VERY awkward to handle.  Actually, they don't fit in a shopping cart, so I was trying to hoist the thing up and lay it across the top of the cart.  It wasn't that heavy; just really awkward.  Unfortunately, the damn box kept ripping every time I'd try to pick it up, and I kept dropping it.  At least four people passed by, including one employee, while this was going on; and no one offered to help.  Meanwhile, while cursing loudly, I finally got the box on top of my cart.  One challenge down.

When I left the store, it was pouring rain.  Like a monsoon.  And, of course, I had parked about half a mile away.  I made a mad dash for the car (or as mad a dash as I could make while balancing the box from hell on top of my cart).  Somewhere in between the sidewalk and my parking space, I realized that I probably should've driven the battered 4Runner instead of my Lexus.  Sure enough, the box was about a foot and a half too long to fit in the trunk once I finally got it (or part of it) wrestled in there.  DAMMIT!  I then had to wrestle the box back out of the trunk and try to get it into the backseat.  It was about six inches too long for the backseat (yes, Bob, I know "that's what she said") and just barely fit height-wise, so I had to sit there and push on it and turn it all kinds of angles in order to get the door closed. 

Meanwhile, I am getting SOAKED by the rain.  The box is also soaked; and just before closing the door for the last time - finally - I notice that the effing blue ink from the pictures on the box is running.  Running onto my white shirt and onto my tan leather seats.  EFF!!!!!  (That's a nice version of what I said).  I drove home as quickly as possible to try to get all the blue crap off my seats before they were dyed forever; and luckily, most of it came off.  I hope I can say the same for my shirt when I get it out of the washer.  Here are some pictures of this awesome experience:



Me, soaked and on the brink of insanity. 



My shirt, which is a really awesome shirt I got in Barbados - I hope it's not ruined.

Finally, I got my car cleaned up and went back out to grab myself some dinner (Ben is out of town, and I had planned on grabbing dinner on the way home from Target, but obviously that didn't work out for me).  On my way back in, I stopped to get my mail, where I found this little gem (address marked out just in case any of you is a crazy stalker and doesn't already know where I live):

I cannot begin to tell you the number of very expensive things I've bought from HH Gregg.  And they think my name is "Da."  Da?  Really?  Eff you, HH Gregg.