puddle-hopping
We're so used to the drought conditions that when things act normal - like they have the past week, for certain damp definitions of 'normal' - we don't know what to do anymore. I don't, and judging by the appalling amount of people who did not turn their headlights on in a storm, neither does most of this city.
I had to go pick up some medicine for my mother, and when I heard thunder I thought that I could get out and back before the rain started. It wasn't far - two stops, maybe five miles total. I dropped the ball on doing it earlier, and she wasn't up to going, so I grabbed my things and stepped out into a drizzle.
I've got to stop assuming I am faster than a cloud because I'm not, even when I'm in a car.
An hour later I was under a protective overhang on the outside of a large warehouse of a store, clutching a plastic bag of medicine in one hand and a purple umbrella in the other. People were standing around watching the rain and waiting for it to stop before they went to their cars. I unfurled my umbrella with a flick of the wrist, thought "Fuck it, why not?" and stepped out.
I think I heard some people say things behind me, but I'm not really sure because the sound of rain was everywhere. I began slogging through drifts of standing water when I realized that, hey, this sort of thing would have been fun when I was eight, and it's still fun now. I had a purple umbrella and dry feet and great puddles and a thunderstorm that wouldn't quit. I kicked my way back to the car, laughing as I went, and when someone in a minivan drove by slowly (checking on me, concerned, and causing a surge of water that submerged the buckles on my boots) I just grinned like a maniac. He grinned back.
Sometimes you're gonna get rained on no matter what you do, so the thing is to try to have fun with it.
Have fun and hope your car doesn't stall when the floods hit the bottom side of the engine. But I got home okay.
Tomorrow I'm getting rain boots.
I had to go pick up some medicine for my mother, and when I heard thunder I thought that I could get out and back before the rain started. It wasn't far - two stops, maybe five miles total. I dropped the ball on doing it earlier, and she wasn't up to going, so I grabbed my things and stepped out into a drizzle.
I've got to stop assuming I am faster than a cloud because I'm not, even when I'm in a car.
An hour later I was under a protective overhang on the outside of a large warehouse of a store, clutching a plastic bag of medicine in one hand and a purple umbrella in the other. People were standing around watching the rain and waiting for it to stop before they went to their cars. I unfurled my umbrella with a flick of the wrist, thought "Fuck it, why not?" and stepped out.
I think I heard some people say things behind me, but I'm not really sure because the sound of rain was everywhere. I began slogging through drifts of standing water when I realized that, hey, this sort of thing would have been fun when I was eight, and it's still fun now. I had a purple umbrella and dry feet and great puddles and a thunderstorm that wouldn't quit. I kicked my way back to the car, laughing as I went, and when someone in a minivan drove by slowly (checking on me, concerned, and causing a surge of water that submerged the buckles on my boots) I just grinned like a maniac. He grinned back.
Sometimes you're gonna get rained on no matter what you do, so the thing is to try to have fun with it.
Have fun and hope your car doesn't stall when the floods hit the bottom side of the engine. But I got home okay.
Tomorrow I'm getting rain boots.