"What," Vernie asked, "is your biggest fear?"

I didn't need to think about it. "Developing an allergy to chocolate," I said.

Vernie sighed. "Get serious."

I was serious. My fear began after I'd stayed too long on a crash diet of Saltine Crackers and Pepsi Zero. After that, chocolate, chocolate and chocolate became an obsession. Since that time, however, a storm warning caused me to reassess my personal fear factor.

Babe, having acted under the cockeyed notion that forewarned meant forearmed, bought a Weather Alert Radio. Bragging that Mother Nature would never again sneak up on us, he set it to go off like a siren, and then placed it on a far table in our bedroom.

One recent morning before dawn, the siren sounded. The cat, Sophie Sorrowful, sprang off the foot of the bed like a greased Slinky, but Babe simply hit the snooze button and came back to bed.

When the alarm screeched again, he had enough sense to turn on the Weather Channel before hitting the snooze button and crawling back in bed.

TORNADO WARNING. TAKE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY!

I groaned. "What's going on?"

"Tornado warning," he mumbled

I rolled over, eyes wide open. "A warning or a watch?"

He yawned. "Warning."

I yanked the covers off his Yankee butt and screamed, "A warning? Get up right now! Where's the cat?"

"Coffee," he grunted.

In that precise moment, I knew that my biggest fear didn't have a thing in the world to do with chocolate. Having lived in hurricane country most of my life, I totally know the drill. When the storm troopers say it's time to evacuate, I'm first in line. That said, nowhere on my Bucket List have I ever written, "I want to wake up and say, 'we're not in Kansas anymore.' "

Babe shuffled off for coffee and I began to fill bookbags with emergency supplies while looking around for the cat. When I went into the kitchen, Babe was standing stupidly in front of the coffee maker as though it were the Holy Grail, so I looked for cans of things that didn't need to be cooked, as well as all things chocolate.

Babe slowly turned toward me. "Hey, Sparky. What'cha doing in the pantry with all those cans and stuff?" "We should have a storm cellar," I cried.

He sighed. "Duh. We live on an island below sea level. Would you rather drown or wake up in Kansas?"

I gave him a look. "So where do you suggest we hide from the soon-to-be-here funnel-shaped cloud devouring everything not below sea level?"

He yawned. "The Box."

When we remodeled the house, we installed a small elevator we affectionately named, "The Box." Babe's football days had made mashed potatoes out of his knees, so an elevator seemed a less painful option than knee replacement. I should have thought of it as an escape hatch myself, but I'm not a deep thinker at six a.m.

"Find the cat," I yelled, before bolting out of the kitchen with a bookbag full of canned salmon and saltines. I jerked the elevator door open, and was tossing stuff inside when Babe moseyed up with two cups of coffee in his hands and a Krispy Kreme Donut sticking out of his mouth.

"How can you eat when the house is fixing to spin into Florida? Where's the cat?"

He shrugged.

She was in Babe's closet, shaking like the Wicked Witch was after her instead of us. I grabbed her and said, "Get in The Box 'before I make a dime bank out of you.' " Babe was already in, rooting around for anything not canned.

Sophie Sorrowful lived up to her name by carrying on something awful. Babe, using a high-pitched witch voice, shrilled, "Make her be quiet or I'll get you my pretty... and your little cat too!"

We stayed inside The Box till noon with a freaked out cat, canned salmon, saltines and not one piece of chocolate. When finally no funnel-shaped cloud had rocked our world, Babe said, "Hey, Dorothy, I'm melting, I'm melting! Click your heels together three times and say the words."

I smiled and said, "I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

"What else, Babe asked."

I rolled my eyes. "There's no place like home."

Pushing me out of The Box, he added, "And the yellow brick road is leading me to the kitchen, Dottie, so take off those silly red shoes and put your apron back on."