World: 1, Seanan: 0.
Last night, I had to run some errands down in the Oak Grove Plaza and Citrus Marketplace area. Normally, this would be no big deal; Oak Grove Plaza is connected to my house by the 115 bus line, and is effectively a straight shot, while the Citrus Marketplace is about a ten minute walk from there. Since I try never to shy away from the ten minute walks, this seemed totally reasonable.
Except for the part where it was literally raining buckets.
We're talking the kind of rain that thinks forty days, forty nights and a mandate from Heaven are peachy things to have. There were sandbags at some of the corners, to keep culverts and lawns from flooding (and they weren't working). I eyed the rain, sighed, and got dressed, adding my enormously thick winter coat, bought to protect me from the weather in New York and London.
On the porch, I discovered that a vertical gout of water had managed to fill my shoes, rendering them effectively unwearable. How peachy. I dug out my sandals and put those on instead, acting under the reasonable (to me) assumption that at least if they filled with water, the water would just run right out again. And I started to walk.
From my house to the bus stop is approximately two blocks. No big deal in dry weather, and only marginally annoying in the rain. I was still mostly dry when I got there, save for my feet and the cuffs of my jeans. There was a massive puddle in front of the bus stop, filling a good three feet of the street.
You know how in the movies and on television, people will be standing on the sidewalk, and a car will drive by, throwing up a huge wall of water that soaks them? And everyone laughs, because that never happens in real life? Yes, it does. It does happen in real life.
The first time someone sprayed me with a wall of rainwater, I shrieked.
The second time, I yelped.
By the tenth time, I started to cry. Mind you, my tears were motivated more by the fact that the last three times had been the same car, a decrepit thing packed with teenage boys who had the windows down and were laughing as they hit the puddle as fast as they could, but...
I started using my umbrella to try to ward off the walls of water, which felt bizarrely like a video game of some perverse kind. This caused someone (I suspect my teenage tormentors, but have no way of being sure) to tell the police that I was out there threatening cars with my umbrella, and an officer came over in his nice, dry uniform, in his nice, dry car, to come and tell me to cut it out. I explained that I was nowhere near the edge of the sidewalk and not threatening anyone, but trying to stay dry. He repeated the 'cut it out', and left.
Mind you, the reason I'd been staying at this stop and not moving a few blocks down to the next one? The bus was already late, and if I missed it, that meant another half hour in the rain. By the time it arrived, I was soaked to the skin, shivering, and my jeans were so wet they were falling down.
I hate people.
Except for the part where it was literally raining buckets.
We're talking the kind of rain that thinks forty days, forty nights and a mandate from Heaven are peachy things to have. There were sandbags at some of the corners, to keep culverts and lawns from flooding (and they weren't working). I eyed the rain, sighed, and got dressed, adding my enormously thick winter coat, bought to protect me from the weather in New York and London.
On the porch, I discovered that a vertical gout of water had managed to fill my shoes, rendering them effectively unwearable. How peachy. I dug out my sandals and put those on instead, acting under the reasonable (to me) assumption that at least if they filled with water, the water would just run right out again. And I started to walk.
From my house to the bus stop is approximately two blocks. No big deal in dry weather, and only marginally annoying in the rain. I was still mostly dry when I got there, save for my feet and the cuffs of my jeans. There was a massive puddle in front of the bus stop, filling a good three feet of the street.
You know how in the movies and on television, people will be standing on the sidewalk, and a car will drive by, throwing up a huge wall of water that soaks them? And everyone laughs, because that never happens in real life? Yes, it does. It does happen in real life.
The first time someone sprayed me with a wall of rainwater, I shrieked.
The second time, I yelped.
By the tenth time, I started to cry. Mind you, my tears were motivated more by the fact that the last three times had been the same car, a decrepit thing packed with teenage boys who had the windows down and were laughing as they hit the puddle as fast as they could, but...
I started using my umbrella to try to ward off the walls of water, which felt bizarrely like a video game of some perverse kind. This caused someone (I suspect my teenage tormentors, but have no way of being sure) to tell the police that I was out there threatening cars with my umbrella, and an officer came over in his nice, dry uniform, in his nice, dry car, to come and tell me to cut it out. I explained that I was nowhere near the edge of the sidewalk and not threatening anyone, but trying to stay dry. He repeated the 'cut it out', and left.
Mind you, the reason I'd been staying at this stop and not moving a few blocks down to the next one? The bus was already late, and if I missed it, that meant another half hour in the rain. By the time it arrived, I was soaked to the skin, shivering, and my jeans were so wet they were falling down.
I hate people.