To judge by the frantically enthusiastic local TV coverage, most everybody involved was perversely and frankly enjoying the hysterical, unbearable edge of weather tension. The sky was canary yellow and full of dust, and great fearsome sheets of dry heat lightning crackled all evening, and everything smelled of filth and sweat and ozone, and the people were actively savoring this situation. The drought had simply gone on too long. The people of Tornado Alley had suffered far too much already. They had gone far past fear. They had even gone past grim resignation. By now, the poor bastards were deep into convulsively ironical black humor.