SOAKING WET

Last night I went to do an errand. It was about 9 p.m. when I left the house and before I flew out the door I did the dance: "Should I take the umbrella? No... maybe I should. The sky is looking pretty mean."

Finished; time to go home. I'm walking down Bloor Street when it starts to trickle rain. Yaa... I am on top of the game. As I get within about 15 minutes of my house -- I was walking -- it started to really come down. And there was thunder and lightning. The umbrella is one wonderful little instrument, even if they are designed to be replaced in short order -- how short, I was to be educated. And then some. I turned onto the street leading to my own. (This street runs east-west). In case you have not experienced a fire-crew spraying water right at you as you walk, and a film-crew blowing one of those wind machines two feet from your face, well then, you have not experienced what I did last night. Never have I been caught in such a driving, raining windstorm. The rain was attacking me in an almost horizontal plane. My umbrella was slowly but surely collapsing into a primitive form as I made my way. What should have been a three minute walk easily turned out to be double that. I was soaking wet. In case I did not understand that, I was instantly and continually reminded. My shoes became squishy from being waterlogged many times over. It was funny... I was laughing all the way. The sky was glowing with the constant flashes from lightning bolts. With the same sense of humour which kept me in good, albeit, damp spirits I periodically looked up and around at the sky, knowing that the lighting would make a nice background to a funnel cloud. There were tornado warnings for the Toronto area, and I had not forgotten. And would not been surprised if I thought I was looking at a rear projection screen from that certain scene in The Wizard of Oz.

I made it to my stoop. My umbrella had the look of a former umbrella. As the water unwrapped from my body, I stood there... watching the sky.

It was great.