In Which Accents Are Scarier Than Tornados

Growing up on the outskirts of Chicago, it seemed that every Summer found my mother hurrying us down to the basement because of tornado warnings. There was discussion as to whether to leave the windows open or closed upstairs (we went for open, I believe, under the assumption that this would equalize the pressure--a theory that I seem to remember finding out later in life as being bogus). There was discussion as to where to actually place ourselves in the basement. There were fantasies of the roof coming off the house, or widespread destruction, and us magically safe belowground. But here's the thing: I never *ever* remembered being frightened of tornados. None of us were. We'd be down there as the town sirens were going off and, hell, it was actually more of a chance for the family to be together (and is actually something of a fond memory) than anything even remotely resembling a threat. The wind would be blowing against the side of the house, the windows flapping around upstairs, maybe a tree limb or two rapping outside, and we'd be playing ping-pong.

So you'll forgive me if last night, as the rain and wind smacked against the side of my much smaller home, and as the town siren went off alerting me that someone, somewhere saw a tornado touch down, that I sat back down in the living room and watched some more Kids in the Hall on DVD. I briefly thought of taking it downstairs to watch, sure, but I think mainly because of the damn noisy sirens.

Of course, whenever this happens (i.e., the tornado thing), I remember there being a tornado warning while in a creative writing class. One of the women in the class was a little freaked out about it, so I (thinking it was because she'd never lived in a tornado prone area) told her a version of the story above, to the effect of, "Look, we had these all the time when I was little, and around 2 or 3 since then. Don't worry about it," in a jocular but dismissive way.

But, nope: The reason she's freaked out is because (ha ha!) she'd been hit by a tornado when she was younger and lived in fear of the things. I feel like an ass. I've basically told someone "They say the chances of being attacked by a shark is the same as being hit by lightning," to have them come back with, "My dad was eaten by a shark. After he was knocked off the side of the boat by a bolt of lightning." This was really one of the most pleasant, easygoing, and interesting women I've ever met, too, which might explain why every single damn time there's a tornado warning now, I don't think of the nice childhood memory thing, but the kind of embarrassing foot-in-mouth thing.

This isn't so bad, but there's a woman here at work named Nadia. Great name. I think she's more-or-less full time here for the summer. Very good-looking Indian/Middle-Eastern woman, probably too young, but pleasant to me, with a very noticable Indian (or Middle-Eastern!) accent. Well, she want me to help her scan her W2 form so she can send it to her mother in Germany, for whatever reason. Cutting to the chase, I'm scanning it and:

ME: Where in Germany does your mom live?
HER: Berlin
ME: Oh, that's cool. [something occurs to me] Did you grow up in Germany?
HER: Oh, yes.
ME: [because I'm still under the impression that Indian (or "Middle-Eastern"!) is her native tongue, because of her accent] Man, how many languages can you speak?
HER: Oh, I know German, and quite a bit of Russian
....
ME: Holy crap, you have a German accent
HER: [puzzled] You're just noticing?
ME: I always assumed it was Middle-Eastern.
HER: Looks can be deceiving, you mean? (she's maybe looking at me like I'm an idiot)

So there's Nadia: German citizen of Indian descent (it turns out, of course), and not a Middle-Eastern sorry have to get back to Saudi-Arabia to make sandwiches for the men girl. And I'm so shocked by the whole sheer obviousness of her German accent, which is clearly not a Middle-Eastern or Indian accent, that I'm feeling--ohhhhhhhhhhhhh--slightly racist and kind of stupid as I keep saying, "Oh, that's so weird!"

The point being that I worry about natural disasters far less than I do embarrassing moments, as it's my nature to find myself captured (oh, so many times) in the latter more often than the former.