DISASTERS AND DAYDREAMS

Like everyone else on the planet, I was glued to the TV set last week watching Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. It's like driving past a grisly car wreck--you just can't help gawking at the bodies.

It took a while before I realized I wasn't feeling as sorry for the victims as I probably should have. Instead, I was daydreaming of the glory days back when my whole family and I were disaster victims--the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1973. (So good, they arranged a sequel in 1993.)

The great, guilty secret is--it was fun! Oh, it was pretty bad, losing our house and all the furniture and the keepsakes and stuff, and having to crash with friends until the feds put us up in a rent house in St. Louis County. I remember going over to the county seat to sign up for government commodities and walking into the office with three barefoot, grimy kids and the ladies looking at us with mingled sympathy and horror. Oh, yeah!

But it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to us, and we were on an emotional rush for weeks. So was everyone else. It was like starring in a high-budget movie--hey, don't laugh, it cost millions! Everybody had a story. I would run into neighbors at the disaster office or the gas station or the Goodwill store, and we would regale each other with outlandish stories, each one more outrageous than the one before.

Of course, eventually we came down off the high, and had to cope with shoveling out mud, tearing out walls, gagging on the smell of rotting vegetation, coping with friends who, like us, were turning whiny. We moved back into our house before we should have, when it was only partly rehabbed, and I remember cooking the Thanksgiving turkey while a handyman crawled around in the attic rewiring the house and fell through the ceiling. Funny now, but not then.

Everybody on TV is feeling sorry for the poor victims, and I want to tell them--"Don't!" They're having it pretty tough now, but except for the ones who have actually lost loved ones, it's gonna get lots better. They are going to get food vouchers and clothing vouchers and rent vouchers and FEMA trailers and cash grants for rebuilding and vocational training and--good Lord, there's no end to the bonanza. Again, except for the ones who lost family members, they're going to look back on this some day and say, "Damn, that was fun!"