The radio ad was airing on a local station, and I nearly changed the channel. Something about the monotone voice was a little grating, I suppose, but for some reason, I didn’t change it.

“You get up. You have breakfast. You get dressed. You ride the bus to work. You go to a 10 a.m. meeting. Leave that to go to another meeting. It’s a wonder anyone gets any work done because we’re too busy meeting. You ride the bus home….”

You get the point.

The last line was a kicker, though.

“You did everything you normally do the day before an F3 tornado strikes and 30,000 people are without power.”

It’s a simple illustration about how disasters – be those natural or manmade – can wreak havoc on one’s life in no time flat.

One day things are A-OK. The next, they aren’t.

If I was like The Star-News’ very talented columnist Jan White, I could put together a wonderful Biblical correlation, but I’m not.

I guess I’m a pragmatist.

Disaster kits make sense to me. Heck, I even have one in my car stocked with a change of clothes, rain boots and an umbrella. I have glow sticks in my glove box in case I break down.

I recognize that I’m a planner, but, I need a book that tells me where to be and when to be there, and then, I need to have my phone remind me 10 minutes before I need to be there.

What I really need is a disaster preparedness plan for my life.

When you’ve got baton, gymnastics, soccer and all the other school activities, I need a plan when I have to run from one end of town to The Company for baton and to the Sports Complex for soccer and there’s only 15 minutes between the two.

If that doesn’t sound like a situation for a plan, I don’t know what does. Of course, if you think it doesn’t, then you’ve never driven to the school in a robe because your kids missed the school bus.

I know I need help, so – got a great idea to feed my kids – and those of the other 300-plus soccer participants – on game night? Let me know.

I want to hear from other parents who have a trick to get their lazy kid up and dressed in time to catch the school bus (Don’t laugh, but mine is you-dress-the-nearly-comatose child as you wake her up. Thankfully, we’ve outgrown that) or how you get them out the door in the mornings without pinching their heads off.

Share your words of wisdom by posting them as comments to this column at andalusiastarnews.com.