’Tis the season to get your fraidy hole ready

Time to get your fraidy hole ready for tornado season.

First, make sure to have some cans of potted meat and Vieennie sausages, and crackers in a Ziploc, tucked in the toilet tank, so when the walls come tumblin’ down, you’ll have somethin’ to eat while waitin’ to be rescued.

And that’s about as far as even I can go trying to be funny about tornado disaster preparedness. If you’ve survived a direct hit, or even a close one, feel free to grimace.

I have been herded with everyone else to basement safety at a workplace several times over the years. But at home, just three times have I actually consciously “sheltered in place.”

Which means I went to a “small center room (like a bathroom or closet) or an interior hallway with no windows” — rather than stepping outside to watch the sky and ooh and ahh over the hail. (That’s no joke, newcomers; it’s just what we do.)

The first time, I was in my late 20s, living in an apartment in Texas. The second and third times, I was in my 40s, in Edmond, May 24, 2011, April 14, 2012.

In my 50s, I’ve started thinking about the law of averages — and you statisticians just hold your fire; you know what I mean, and if you don’t, get me a minister. Oh, wait.

Whatever fascination I ever had with tornadoes is long gone. As a journalist, I’ve written about too many of them, and too many zillions of dollars of damage and plenty of death, for it to be fun.

Having to clamber under thick blankets into a bathtub with my wife, three be-carriered cats and a geriatric weenie dog in 2011-2012 was enough. Now, we’re down a dog but up a cat, and one of them is geriatric — and we’re creakier, too.

No, thanks.

Sure, I will still deploy newsroomstyle gallow’s humor in self-defense — the Mike Morgan Drinking Game is a longtime favorite. But, given the opportunity, we’d just as soon drive

out west when a dry line sets up, and come in behind the storms. “Storm following,” we call it. Oh, about your fraidy hole? Have one even if it’s just a second bath in the center of the house, which is all we have.

I will not insult you with much of the obvious advice beyond: Get down low, protect your head, pray. Go here for more from the Storm Prediction Center in Norman: www.spc.noaa.gov/ faq/tornado/safety.html.

But two things: Have daytime clothes on, and boots or sturdy shoes. You might wind up stripped naked anyway, but maybe not.

And remember that to your beloved pets, you are their lord and savior: Be prepared, and act like it.