Rainy Day Blog

No, of course you can't. It's cold and rainy on the street, and no one carries two umbrellas. On a day like this, most people are lucky enough to grab one umbrella, in order to shield them from the awful, cold, wet precipitation from above. Others are unlucky enough to have their umbrella stowed away in their vehicle, and retrieving it would require walking through the storm, and defeating the purpose of having an umbrella altogether. Guess who falls into this unlucky sect. That said, it's really completely unacceptable for me to ask someone I pass on the way to my car if they have an umbrella I can use. Like I said, they are most likely NOT carrying a reserve umbrella, for cases of which the starter umbrella can't perform its duties. Nor will they gladly donate their first umbrella to my cause, that's just foolish. Mainly because I do very little to contribute to our apartment community. Yep, no love from the neighbors. So where does all of this leave me? Wet. Very wet.

I did wear a jacket this morning, but even that had to take the rain into consideration. My suede jacket and my wool coat do as about as well in the rain as Andruw Jones at the plate. My waterproof wind breaker would be a grand option - if it weren't sitting adjacent to my umbrella in the back seat of my car. Which leaves me with either a Casual Friday hockey jersey over the top of my collared shirt (We call this the "Draft Day" look), or my uberwarm ski jacket. Decision: ski jacket.

You would think I would learn to check the weather report before going to bed at night. You would think I'd remember to bring my jacket and umbrella in from the car to prevent such a problem. You would think that running to the car for a kid who ran track for fun in order to stay dry wouldn't result in him falling down because of a wayward patch of slick leaves. You would think.

And as I think about how such a simple meteorological occurrence can swing my day in a soaking wet direction, I need to remind myself that this isn't the first time I've seen rain. After all, YAB HQ isn't located somewhere in Arizona or Sudan. I'm in DC, and I grew up in NJ. There's plenty of rain to go around both locales. And I sift through my sack of vignettes, I'm going to have to settle on telling you the rain-related story that still irks me to this day. It's also lets me vent the following:

Erin Kerby has my T-shirt.

In 1999, Williamsburg, Virginia lay dead in the crosshairs of Hurricane Floyd. Since schools in VA have a policy of canceling school if Twister or Snow Dogs is just on television, needless to say, classes were put on hold for a hurricane-level storm. I could have stayed at Governor's Square and played Trivial Pursuit with everyone else until the storm passed. Instead, I answered the phone. Big mistake.

Well, as a card-carrying member of the Circle K service organization, I felt I needed to head to the College's b-ball stadium, which served as the county hurricane shelter. Figuring I'd be setting up cots and making eggs, I dressed comfortably - t-shirt, shorts, sandals, windbreaker. I even packed some extra clothes if got rained in.

When we all arrived (the wind had only reached 55 mph at this point), we were gathered by the Red Cross and assigned jobs. Positions were handed out on a volunteer basis. "Ok, I need two volunteers. Great! You two will be in charge of playing with all the families' children." See this was going to be fun? Those two girls who raised their hands have an evening of playing Duck Duck Goose to look forward to. Ok, I'm going to raise my hand for the next job! How exciting!

"Ok, now we need two more volunteers. 1, and yes, the tall gentleman, 2. You two get to direct traffic outside."

Uh oh.

Next thing I know, I'm standing in the middle of a flooded parking lot using a bright blue frisbee to direct cars into parking spaces. I jokingly asked my partner, yes, Erin Kerby, if she wanted to toss the disc while waiting for cars, and she surprisingly agreed. She threw first. I ducked for my life. I found out that even the biggest frisbee novice can through a blazing backhand when they are standing upwind of you and that wind is hovering near 100 mph.

Did I mention it was raining?

And the end of the night, I returned home. I lad lent Erin an extra t-shirt I had, and always assumed I'd get it back after a round of laundry. I was wrong. And it was a good William and Mary t-shirt. Campus Shop quality. Oh well, I may not have the shirt, but I did get to stand outside in a hurricane and dodge hydroplaning Maximas, right?

Now that's a consolation prize.