Wednesday, September 10, 2008
My husband drove through Hurricane Gustav and all I got was this lousy photo.
Okay, it’s really a cool photo. But you understand, in keeping with the t-shirt quote, I had to keep similar phrasing.
Yes, that’s my book. My husband read it sitting in a Suburban SUV outside the hotel he was protecting during Gustav. He called to tell me how much he liked it and to let me know he thought my use of “dialogue has improved.” And yes, he really said that.
Tom got the call to head to New Orleans a few days before Gustav hit. He drove there from Illinois in a rented SUV filled with all kinds of stuff – from a generator to duct tape. His mission was to protect a hotel, its clients and staff from the possibility of looters. Sounds like fun, eh? Well, it sounds like fun to Tom.
Being that I’m afraid of stuff like hurricanes, I wasn’t happy about this. Especially when he arrived in time to drive across the 22 mile causeway over Lake Ponchitrain in the full brunt of Gustav. He actually said, “It was kind of tense.”
Now, my husband is not an excitable man. Those words coming from him would be the equivalent of me saying, “OHMYGOD! #!@! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”
While he was there, he realized he hadn’t yet read my latest, STAND BY YOUR HITMAN. So, being a guy who likes to watch storms, he sat out in the vehicle during the storm and read my book.
WHO IN THE HELL DOES THAT?
Of course, this is Mr. Assassin. When he made his first parachute jump in the 82nd Airborne, instead of screaming like a little girl as he plummeted to the ground (as I would have done), this man took pictures of the ground rushing up between his feet. He then sold the photo to other guys in the 82nd so they could all send it home and say that they took the picture. He made a fair amount of money off that too.
And last night, he tells me that he can’t believe that Bob and Al (my dying plants) got last week’s blog when he read my book in a car during a hurricane.
So Tom, here it is, your moment of zen.