Mother Nature needs to work on her scheduling skills

I want it NOW!

Veruca Salt

I admit it, I am the spoiled American public, hereafter referred to as SAP. I have bought softened cream cheese (its really hard to spread it when its cold), I don't like it if my sweaters don't get fabric softener (they don't feel as fluffy on my skin), I will not tolerate dial-up internet access (wait 30 or 40 seconds for Gary Coleman's tweet from Mardi Gras? NO WAY!). I want it how I want it, when I want it, as much as I want. Everything, all the time.

Especially information and entertainment. If I am going on a long drive, a DVD player, of course, is invaluable, or else my children my have to watch the world zip past at 60 miles an hour. I need internet on my phone, because sometimes I am not sitting in front of a computer, and I must be online during the time I am shopping for softened cream cheese. What, are we living in o'den times? Horse and buggy days?

When I heard an earthquake had devastated much of Chile, I didn't watch a lot of the coverage directly after it hit. It was the weekend, I wasn't sitting in front of a computer, didn't feel like watching TV, so I didn't really think much of it.

Then, the earthquake created a chain reaction. A tsunami was going to hit Hawaii, and unlike the quake in Chile, the world had a heads-up for this natural disaster.

News channels around the world rallied. Drunken surfers salivated. The Weather Channel people wept with joy.

And the SAP cracked open a cold one, popped some popcorn, and got ready to watch the devastation. Online, on cable and satellite television, and over their cell phones. Twitter went insane. Google Earth as well.

The show of the century! Well, the weekend anyway. Death and carnage, bodies being tossed about on the waves, homes being smashed like so many toothpicks, tourists being swept out to sea, saying their goodbyes via Twitter.

Very Dramatic. Great TV. Youtube fodder for months.

Except, doggone it, the tsunami just took for-ev-ver.

I mean, I am a busy woman, I have things to do on the weekends. There's laundry – the work involved is back breaking. You have to separate the clothes, then put them in the machine, sometimes one item at a time. The endless waiting for the rinse cycle (you know how I feel about fabric softener). Then – as if that isn't bad enough, you have to actually handle them again, into another machine. Sheesh, what am I, a weight lifter? Then theres cooking, slaving over a hot Foreman grill is not for the weak. I have even gone so far as to buy vegetables that were still whole. I was forced to cut them into bite sized pieces! Just because I didn't have to plant them, and water them, and weed the garden and dig the carrots up and then wash them, our ancestors may have thought I have it easy. But cooking can be labor intensive, the opening of numerous boxes and jars, the putting of dishes into another machine afterward, it is exhausting.

So when I plopped down in front of the tube, I was relieved the crawl across the bottom of CNN said the tsunami could occur “at any moment.” I don't have time to wait around all day. So, I flipped around to find the best live feed (who wants to watch a loop of tsunami waiting video that could be up to an hour old?), and settled in for some hard core disaster coverage.

But, the promised tsunami did not appear as predicted. I waited. Put some frozen bread dough in the oven. Still no tsunami. Plucked my eyebrows. No wave. Took a nap. Same tourists on my TV screen, sitting on a sea wall, waiting for an ocean of death to come sweep them out to sea, video cameras and cocktails with them. What, I asked, am I going to have to TiVO a tidal wave? Can't this be moved along, rescheduled?

The news folks were doing what they could to keep us entertained. It seems everyone who works anywhere near a TV station, local, network or international, knew someone who knew someone who happened to be in Hawaii. And that person had a cell phone, and was more than happy to be an accidental remote disaster reporter.

“We go now live to our associate producer's nephew's neighbor, who is on a trip to celebrate his tenth wedding anniversary on the big island of Hawaii. Steven, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you, but its hard, all of us are crammed into one bar, we couldn't go to the swim up bar at the pool because of the tsunami. Did you know they're having a. . . excuse me, miss? Could I get another Jaigerbomb?. . . anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, there's something going on down on the beach. . .”

“Steve, can you see the wave? Is the fear and panic palpable? Are people panicking?”

“Yeah, it got a little dicey a few minutes ago, the Karaoke bar only had classic rock, and people were freaking out . . . hey man, turn that UP! That's my song! She's rocking that beer gut. . .”

“Steve, are people looting or rioting? Fighting for food and water? Coming to blows over dwindling water supplies?”

“Huh? What? Oh, yeah, it's getting bad. There were some wings in her a while ago, and this big ole dude took all the bleu cheese, people were really mad. It seemed like forever before the waitress brought more from the back, it was crazy.”

“And now we go back to Andrea for computer generated animation of what could theoretically happen if the tsunami hit during happy hour at the Diamond Head Holiday Inn.”

By the time the tsunami did make it to Hawaii, I had lost interest and was taking a hot bath. My niece had given up and was watching Olympic curling, it turned out to be more exciting than the giant wave.

The husband was watching a movie about a ball team who crashed in the Himalayas and were fighting a Yeti for dibs on the dead bodies.

Somewhat anticlimactic.

We are the SAP, and we wait for no tsunami. No disaster, natural or man-made, will hold our attention for longer than it takes to push a button on the remote control. We need three Olympic sports being played at once, we need to watch Jersey Shore and to talk on the phone and surf the web while we are ignoring the healthcare summit going on in Washington.

Those sponsors will learn. If they want to keep their ratings up, they need to make sure to keep the disasters, well, disastrous. Dramatic.

Blood curdling, if possible. With plenty of commercial breaks for snacks.