Someone's in the Hurricane Safe-Room with Dinah

I looked outside a few minutes ago, and it looks like rain—hard, heavy rain and a lot of it. As I did this, it occurred to me that I haven't been keeping track of hurricanes lately, so I'm forced to ask myself: is this "hurricane" rain or regular Florida rain? Unfortunately for me, my usual source of weather information—my dad—is out of the country right now. He's at that age where he and the Weather Channel have some sort of interface that makes him part of said channel. I mean, he'll call to ask me how I'm enjoying the weather up here because he knows exactly what kind of weather I'm getting. But I digress.

I've got hurricanes on the mind now because I've been working on my hurricane provisions. By default, my bathroom is my hurricane safe-room (no windows), and, thus far, I've stocked it with small cans of Spaghetti-Os, green beans, baked beans, and chick peas as well as those small packages of biscuit, corn bread, and bran muffin mixes and 4 jugs of water. (Lest you think I'm short-sighted, I've also stored up 2 weeks worth of cat food, baby wipes, batteries, matches, candles, and a flashlight.) What might really come in handy, though, is an Easy Bake Oven. You know, for kids! If I remember correctly, the EBO cooks baked goods using of a low-wattage bulb. Have people not considered this invention for hurricane usage? Take a memo!

So, yeah, short of figuring out how to bake items during a soul-and-property- destroying storm, I'm not sure how much fun I would be to ride out a hurricane with. I'm all about the planning, but I haven't thought out what I'd do during a hurricane to pass the time. Plus, I'm not really set for company; more emphatically, I'm a hurricane barricader, not a hurricane party-ier. I don't even have the "fun food" that Hurricane Food Advisors say that you should have to buoy your spirits (I'd eat any hidden "fun food" before a hurricane could leave the African coast). BUT...if I were to prepare for a major storm and were needed to house guests, here's what I'd do:

1) Get a house with a bigger "safe-room," preferably a "safe-suite" with a bathroom, large-ish common area, and one or two smallish additional rooms.
2) Stock Baked Lays rippled sour-cream-and-cheddar potato chips and Little Debbie Fudge Rounds.
3) Invite selected friends and family, Kevin Meaney, Alimi Ballard, and Alan Cumming. I choose these particular celebrities because they are easy-going, funny, and (of course) attractive.
4) Stock Balderdash, Apples-to-Apples, enough pens and paper for people to write out Decameron-type stories, and a few really great (and long-ish) reads.
5) Maybe stock ingredients for amaretto sours.

This is good list for starters, but, of course, I'd need to add to it as a threat became more imminent. I wouldn't want people to experience a double disappointment of life-altering devastation and a poorly-planned week-long party. Until the next go-around—stay dry and safe!