FRANCES, YOU BITCH!

If you live in Miami (or any part of Florida along the eastern coast), hurricanes are an accepted part of life. Each summer marks the beginning of hurricane season, and for the four/five months that follow the middle of July, there are always endless observations and predictions for every cyclonic blip that appears on the meterologists' computer screen.

The same questions are raised each time: When the wave of hot air meets the front of cold air, will the two form a tropical disturbance? If so, will this disturbance linger in the Atlantic long enough, and strengthen itself enough, to become a hurricane? If it does become a hurricane, what category is it likely to fall into, or will it just major in Psychology?

Back when I was a small lad in Miami, I prayed throughout the last two weeks of every August that Tropical Storm Amber, Bonnie, Cleo, or Dana, would quickly mature into a powerful hurricane, one that could blow the roof off my school, or at the very least, force a two week-long closing.

But except for my freshman year in high school, my prayers were never answered. Like some watery cocktease, Amber, Bonnie, Cleo, or Dana would spin and shake their stuff suggestively out in the margins off the Atlantic Coast, but after raising expectations to their boiling point, shove off, leaving those who had been watching them intently high and dry.

And now that I am not even living in Miami, here comes Hurricane Frances. A Category 4 hurricane--with a chance of Category 5 when it hits Miami!

That's right, when it hits Miami, not if. From all the online news reports I've gleamed, the worst case scenario is Hurricane Frances plows right through the southernmost tip of the state with the voracity of an old Chinese woman at a Sample Sale. Best case scenario: One of the storm's mighty limbs engulfs Miami. Damage in the billions is predicted by experts, and boy, do I hope those know-it-alls are wrong.

There's irony for you. I'm older now, and no longer the young John Boorman from "Hope and Glory," elated when a Nazi bomb destroys his school (His friend runs around yelling, "Thank you, Adolf!") I actually understand the catastrophic effect of major property damage, and people getting killed. Plus, my parents still live in Miami, and I don't want Frances to slam the house and leave them homeless. Nor do I want looters to trample through the carcass of my former room, and steal my stuff!

Finally, I don't even go to school there anymore, so why should other students get the reprieve I rarely got (They got one, like, two years ago, I think.) Turn away, Frances! Be like every other Frances I ever knew--a cocktease!