Chris survived the recent east coast hurricanes. In this piece, "Weather or Not One way or another, it’s the Bushes’ fault," he gives us his perspective from Atlanta

Have you noticed the weather lately? It’s been wetter than usual, which has been just hell on my commute and lots of peoples’ hair. And what’s up with the electricity in this town? It doesn’t even require a tropical depression – the merest drizzle seems to short out the entire city. I think Georgia Power should simply issue us all a bag of balloons to rub on our sweaters. It seems a much more reliable source of electricity. And I curse the inventor of the electric stove. What a stupid idea. I mean, shaving by candlelight is one thing; cooking over it is not. And how is one supposed to quickly cook the stuff that’s going bad in the non-functioning fridge if the stove is in the same condition?

Of course, I know that things could be far worse. My sister evacuated her home in Vero Beach, FL, and ended up staying with her in-laws for 13 days before she could go home. Imagine having two adults, three young children and a big drooly dog show up on your doorstep and settle in for two weeks. Or try being my boyfriend in N’yawlins (go ahead, I dare you), who drove 7 ½ hours to Baton Rouge (a one hour drive), to stay in a school gym with the ailing, elderly residents of the nursing home where he’s a supervisor. Or try being his cat, who had to live in the cab of his pickup for three days. No wonder people get post-traumatic stress after a hurricane.

But have you noticed the peculiar Floridian focus of all the recent storms? Sure, they form in the Carribean, but they always make for Florida. Yes, Ivan seemed headed for New Orleans – it must be a sore temptation to any hurricane – but he simply couldn’t resist turning back for a swipe at the panhandle instead. Why? Why, with all that ocean, and all that valuable coastline to play on, do this year’s storms all concentrate their attentions on a piece of real estate dangling like a limp penis from the bottom of our country?

I can think of only one cause – Election Year, and I have two theories about this. Theory One is that the Bush brothers are actually creating the storms. This is guaranteed to distract the American public (who have strange preferences when it comes to disasters) from the growing death toll and chaos in Iraq. It also allows George W. to go to hard-hit areas, mutter some comforting script in his fake Texas drawl, and “give” the muddy survivors a couple billion dollars. Never mind that he’s giving them your money when he’s got that much himself, or that the money would appear no matter who was President. And then John Kerry makes the mistake of coming through with only comforting words to offer, as he doesn’t have your pocket to dip into, which makes him look even more useless than W., which many of us had thought impossible.

Now the Bush brothers are many things (Oh, my, yes.), but “rocket scientist” is not among them, and I doubt that they have it in them to control their own bowels, let alone the weather, which brings me to Theory Two. Theory Two believes that Mother Nature (with an understandable axe to grind with W.) is taking a hand in the election. Florida’s plague of hurricanes is simply her way of warning the state to get it right this time. “This is nothing,” says Mom Nature, “Nothing at all to what you’ll get if you if you **** up the way you did in 2000. Get yourselves an honest system and a clear winner, or you won’t even have time to change your name to ‘Atlantis’ before you are set adrift, and a whole lot of people in South Georgia find themselves with some very valuable beachfront property covered with soggy mouse-ear hats.”

Of course, Mom N., in her ire, may have missed a detail or two. For instance, are Florida’s voting machines any better off than the rest of the state, or have they, like everything else, been flooded, mudded, and scattered to the four winds? At this rate, Floridians will find themselves on November 2, scratching the name of their favorite candidate on smithereens of aluminum siding. This will at least make the tallying simpler than last time. Bush in this pile (clank), Kerry in that (clink), and Nader in the recycling (clunk). At least with scraps of manufactured houses, there’s no danger of “hanging chads.”

I know that other places have been troubled by Frances, Ivan and their siblings. (The lack of precision speaks in favor of the Bushes being responsible.) But the only place hit by all the hurricanes has been Florida, and it would behoove that state’s residents to take heed. If they screw up again and Mother Nature lets them slide, I’m giving my sister 24 hours notice, heading south with a shovel, and cutting them loose myself.