Quirks of the Cosmos Thursday: O! A! O!

Consider these words:

vOlcAnO

 tOrnAdO

The similarity jumps off the page and slaps you right upside the head.

Several miscellaneous consonants interspersed at exact intervals by the vowels

O,A and O.

In that order.

Add to these incredible similarities that both refer to natural disasters of epic proportions,

and The Prude is convinced you will not judge her when you read the following humiliation she endured as a young and impressionable Prudling.

Little Prude, at the time of her mortification, lived in northeast Iowa.

Do you know how flat that part of Iowa is? 

This flat: _________________________________________________

But Little Prude was worried. She had a secret fear, developed during her first viewing of

‘The Wizard of Oz.’

She trembled.

She wrung her hands.

She started every time she heard a rumble of thunder.

Her mother, who had 2 babies to take care of, was not going to allow her middle child to turn into a flaming neurotic.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Sure you can. Tell Mommy what is the matter.”

“I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“I don’t want to say.”

This went on for several days. Little Prude trembling and wringing and growing increasingly anxious, Mother changing diapers, making up bottles and growing increasingly frustrated.

Finally she erupted.

“Just whisper in my ear what it is you are so afraid of! NOW!”

Mother’s ‘NOW!’ was not to be disobeyed.

Little Prude drew close to Mother’s ear.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have a vOlcAnO here soon!”

That did it. Mother exploded in laughter, called Father at work and even shared the fear with the neighbors on the party line, all before Little Prude could gather her wits and remember that she had superimposed one catastrophe over another.

“No! I meant tOrnAdO!”

But it was too late.

Every hillock and mound system was called out.

“Honey, look! A vOlcAnO!!!!!!”

The Prude believes the correct term for her true fear is

whIrlwInd.