October 19, 2004 - Rain, rain, go away... no wait, stay!

It rained today... can you believe it? We went a record 182 days without rain so far this year and apparently God thought that was too damn staggering a statistic (although I doubt God would use the word damn) and so he decided to open the heavens in a torrential downpour of defiance… right when I was walking along the street en route to the bank.

I purposely set out when it wasn’t raining and braved the outdoors sans umbrella. Within moments I was drenched like a drowned rat and had to seek refuge in an eerily empty coffee shop, which I must say upon further inspection is clinging to life by the skin of it’s overpriced biscotti. The guy behind the counter seemed shocked to suddenly have this wet little girl appear in his doorway and stared at me for a good minute. I stared back at him. Crap. I’m gonna have to buy something. So I wiped the rain water from my forehead and pretended I had just sauntered in to grab a cup of coffee on my way to important, non-wet activities. (Yeah, this was totally a planned trip to my local coffee shop… oh, is it raining? Huh, well look at that, it is.) I’m sure plenty of high powered business types have wrung their hair out on his doormat. I casually walked up to counter and tried not to make eye contact and pretended I was studying the menu on the wall. Eventually I had to order something, after he had to ask me to move since I was creating a puddle.

I still had to make it back to work though, so now I was sleeting down the street with a some unknown coffee drink in my hand, trying not to slip on the metal grates and having this whole ordeal end in splattered Heather covered in gooey, unwanted coffee. I finally made it inside, to the elevator, and to my floor, upon which I wanted to stop and stand in the foyer and just yell “waaaah!” I was wet and mad. But I’m over it now.. I’ve been using the coffee station napkins as towels to mop up the little puddles I seem to leave everywhere.

Looking out the window right now, the rain is actually going sideways. Sideways! This isn’t normal. All I’m saying is if it’s still sideways-raining when it’s 5 o’clock and time for me to walk to my car, I’d rather hang out downstairs in the mailroom and share a cup of tea with Bob the mail guy and wait, rather than have rainwater squirted into my eyes and ears by this record breaking rain storm.

However, I would like to get home. Weather like this doesn’t come very often, and once I’ve cursed my way through it while walking to my car and cursed my way through it while driving in my car, I would like to curl up and enjoy it when I’m home. Weather like this can be great. Blustery weather like this can make you feel like lighting a fire and drinking hot cocoa. Plus, it gives you an excuse to use words like blustery.

Somehow, working during this kind of weather seems strange. I feel like we shouldn’t be working, it’s raining outside! I think I’m proving myself once again to be the youngest person on the floor… I keep waiting for someone to come over the loud speaker and say "Rainy day schedule!" and everyone cheers and we all start a rousing game of Heads-Up 7-Up.