Wet Weather Behavior...

The monsoons have officially started.

Ok, I don't watch the news, so I'm not quite sure if that's accurate, but according to me? The monsoons have officially started.

Let the happy rain dances begin! Not that I actually dance in the rain...

Well, I did once...naked. Yes you read that right...Naked. Without a stitch of clothing or anything else on me. What? I was young and in amazing shape. Oh wait, no...

No...It was the middle of the night...totally dark, and I may have been delirious with sleep.

Whatever the case was, it felt amazing, dancing around in the middle of the street, the rain falling down on my skin. Well, until I noticed the street light that I was dancing under was on and effectively acting as a spotlight...The skinny dipping in the ocean is a story we shall save for another time.

Lately though, I'm a bit more tame when I see the rain. Don't get me wrong, living in Arizona has that effect on you...a bit of free water falling from the sky? It's dance worthy...only lately I've been finding myself stuck at various retail places around town when the downpour hits. I'm in a store and all of a sudden I notice a whole lot of extra noise and stop to think to myself, "my the air conditioning is noisy" and then it occurs to me that it may be just a bit more than that (well, and the thunder usually tips me off as well...can't put anything by me) And, then I stand at the glass door and watch as all hell breaks loose and the swirling eddies flow by the door carrying bits of dirt, trash and rocks with them (yes rocks...we're still a bit rural here...well, that and with all the sunshine people tend to landscape a lot with crushed granite opting out of maintaining lawns and such) all ankle deep water...

And wouldn't you know it? My umbrella is in the car...the one over there with the windows cracked 2 inches on each side? Yup, that's mine. 28 years in one place and I still can't get the hang of the weather (of course, you can hardly blame me, as for the last 28 years, I have consistently listened to the words "...wow this is unusual weather" come out of someones mouth on a weekly basis...I'm still waiting for the regular usual weather) When I walk into these stores the skies are filled with white fluffy clouds, 15 minutes later? The monsoon storms blow in...and then dump enough rain down to make me regret wearing my new cute silver Born ballet slippers (even though that little girl with the pigtails went running by me shouting, "cute shoes!!!" not 5 minutes before) and I now find myself having to "waste" 15-30 minutes of time in a store so I don't drown when I step off the sidewalk (which inevitably makes me browse and then I spend more money)

I would take my shoes off and wade to the car, pushing my way through the throngs of people that huddle outside trying not to get wet (you'd think that we lived in the town that spawned the Wicked Witch of the West and these people will just melt if they happened to get wet) but alas, my feet are tender...and you never know what debris you're going to find yourself slogging through.

Case in point...when I was a teenager, I owned a Volkswagen Bug. A real Bug, not one of these new fangled versions...but the kind that had large vents in the back over the engine that would leak rain onto my cylanoid making it wet, thus rendering the car not-startable? Yeah...high class, me in the rain taking apart my carburetor so I could wipe the damp off of it so I could leave work...Not to mention what would happen if I put the accelerator all the way to the floor and the accelerator cable either broke or slipped out. I replaced a lot of those (which was fine unless you count the cable casing under the car was rusted out and chances were I would be feeding the thing through and it would end up on the pavement...It actually helped if you taped it to the old one if you could find the right end and feed it through that way...can you imagine how happy I was once I bought a car that actually started each time I tried it? I didn't even know I'd been holding my breath each time I got into the bug and tried to drive)

Anywho...I was waiting to make a left hand turn out of Baskin Robbins after visiting a friend (this may have been when my weight started to become an issue...I mean, free ice cream?!?) and the inside of the windshield used to fog up quite badly, rendering it nearly impossible to see out of the car to drive (no defrost. no horn either...) so, there I was sitting, with the window rolled down on my side so I could pull out during a break in the traffic seeing as the windshield was smeary from all the fog and me wiping it...and a large truck went screaming by, hit the incredibly large puddle that I was sitting next to, which threw a huge wave of water into the car. I couldn't roll the window up fast enough (no electric windows here) and I also happened to be looking the direction of the wall of water...enough to witness time slow down before I got hit full force in the face. Which left me spluttering...and picking leaves and sticks out of my mouth (most likely due to the openness of the horrified "O" I was making right before I got hit) and wiping dirt and mud off of my face and out of my eyes...which was all well and good, only I was on a lunch break from work.

So, that was nice.

But, I've learned my lesson and wade gingerly through the ankle deep water now...and watch for large puddles and speeding trucks...Oh, and I close my mouth too.