This has been a test

This morning I was at my desk and my phone started honking at me. I looked at it and it said there was a tornado warning for my area.  My coworker and I started laughing and I was like "Stupid phone! First it doesn't have a camera and now its sending me fake weather alerts!"  But a moment later another coworker approached us and said "Did you guys hear about the tornado warning? I just got kicked off a statewide conference call because of it."

I guess a lot of people got it.  And it was just a test.  I thought they should send another one to call it off, lest people were in their basements with transistor radios and canned goods.  Curiously pondering the clear skies.  Waiting for further instructions.

I remember when I was a kid and we would all go in the basement when there were tornado warnings.  I remember my mom would tell us that a tornado sounds like a train coming through and the we'd hear the train whistle and freak out.  "No!" She'd say, "Not like a train whistle.  Like a train" One time I remember the storm came up so quickly and our front window blew in. And my sister was terribly afraid of tornadoes and had torn down into the basement .  My parents were trying to push the window back into place against the torrents of rain and wind coming into the house and getting soaking wet and laughing and laughing. My sister was already down in the basement yelling "Come DOWN here! The TORNADO  is coming!!" I didn't know whether to watch my parents or to join my sister and I think I just stood there yelling "Hurry up! Hurry up!" Which of course only added to the hilarity for my mom and dad.

So anyway, another friend told me that many phones have those alert systems and you can turn them off.  I started thinking about how nice it would be if your phone would send you little useful alerts. Like:
ALERT ALERT! YOU HAVE CHOCOLATE ON YOUR FACE!!!

or an alert for someone at work who's in a bad mood that day:
ALERT ALERT! JOHNSON'S REALLY ON A RAMPAGE TODAY! STEER CLEAR!

or even one I could have used from my phone back in December
ALERT ALERT! YOU JUST DROPPED ME IN THE STREET AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY DOWNTOWN! FOCUS WOMAN, AND PICK ME UP. YOU ARE GOING TO REGRET THIS!!!
I really could have used that one.

or
ALERT! DON'T ANSWER THIS INCOMING CALL! YOU DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS CALLER! ANYWAY, THEY ARE TRYING TO SELL YOU SOMETHING!

I think all those would be really useful, don't you?  I'm glad there's not a tornado though.  I'd hate to spend this nice day in the basement.