With every passing day as I age I seemingly get more and more high strung about the weather, specifically anything potentially tornadic.

The main issue is the fact I have more than a dozen trees on my property and I don’t particularly want any of them going through my house. I also really prefer to not have to use the storm shelter on my property because it is where spiders and cave crickets call home, squirrels go to bite the dust and children in the neighborhood for 20 years snuck into to make out.

But, after witnessing the deaths and destruction when a tornado hit Smithville almost exactly five years ago and traveled on to destroy much of Alabama that I visit regularly, I do realize that anything can and will happen and all you can do is protect yourself and hope for the best.

However, I actually was more than eager for Wednesday’s severe weather threat to roll through. Because it was going to take 40 mile-per-hour winds pelting water at my car to get the epic amounts of bugs off of my windshield. Mixing a little hail with it would help for good measure.

You see, on Tuesday night I was driving along Highway 9 between Pontotoc and Sherman and it was completely pitch-black dark. I rounded a curve under a hill and I see a deer charging down that hillside. So I slam on the brakes, because a deer is really the only critter I haven’t hit other than Bigfoot, and I’d really rather not hit either. And while we’re being real here, I’m pretty sure if I found Bigfoot, it very well could be in Pontotoc County or in the North Mississippi wilderness.

Red brake lights lit up the darkness behind me, giving a little extra light for me to crane my neck and peer and squint at the blob headed down the hillside quickly.

It wasn’t a deer.

It was a big bug smudge.

One of about a hundred that have bit the dust on my windshield the past four nights.

It was the belly laugh I needed after a stressful past few days at work dealing with different deadlines and stressed-out folks due to the EAGLE’s move.

After my laugh, I pinged the cruise control back on up to the pushing-my-limit level, cranked up the music and vowed to wash my car more regularly.

I’m pretty confident that since mosquitoes have been chewing on me since February and since we had such a mild winter, I will not be the only one in the car wash line. I’ve also heard, which I will check into for a story in the coming week and let you know what the experts believe, that we are supposed to have a pretty rough tornado season this spring.

Best wishes to all this spring. May the citronella burn bright and the atmosphere stay stable.

Stephanie Rebman is editor of The Oxford EAGLE. Contact her at stephanie.rebman@oxfordeagle.com.