Water

Yesterday a strange thing happened here. Water started falling out of the sky! Is that not the strangest thing you’ve ever heard? At the office we all started collecting around the windows in the building, pressing our hands and faces against the glass, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. We hadn’t seen something like that in so long that we had forgotten what it looked like.

You’d think Mother Nature would have eased us back into the rain experience with a nice, gentle summer shower, the kind that makes birds chirp and flowers bloom. That would have been the considerate thing to do. But no, she was in a bitchy mood and instead sent us hurricane force winds that drove the golf-ball-sized raindrops in horizontal sheets. It felt like the rain was attacking us, trying to get at us through the cracks in the mortar. This rain was taking the paint off exposed surfaces. It was a little unsettling, but we were safe and dry inside the office building, protected by the brick and shatter-resistant glass construction. We even did a little celebrating and high-fiving when we realized that enough rain was falling to water our lawns and cool our cars for the drive home. It eventually turned into quite a party by the windows.

But then I remembered my car. Oooooh, the car. And the cracked windows. Yes, forgot about that. I had left my car windows cracked open about an inch yesterday morning, as I always do in the summer unless there is rain in the forecast. I do it so I don’t burst into flames when I get in the car to drive home. The technique keeps the car interior temperature just below the flash point for human flesh. It doesn’t make a huge difference in my comfort, but it does keep me from catching on fire and that’s all I need. Since there hadn’t been rain in the forecast for at least a couple of months, I left them cracked yesterday without a second thought.

I wasn’t too worried as I headed to the parking lot yesterday afternoon. I knew there would be some cleanup needed, but I’ve handled a cracked window in a rainstorm before. A few swipes with the Sonic napkins I keep in the glove compartment and I would be good to go. I never thought a one inch gap in the car’s exterior could allow enough water to get into the interior to cause a problem, maybe enough to get the door a little damp and maybe a little on the seat in a heavy rain, but nothing catastrophic. I was wrong. The entire front half of my beloved Honda Accord was soaked. As in DRENCHED. As in SATURATED. There was enough water in the car to keep a school of goldfish alive indefinitely. The whole horizontal-hurricane-force-wind thing was probably the culprit. Great.

I dealt with it all as well as I could. The Sonic napkins were overwhelmed almost immediately, but I wrung them out a couple of times and kept on working on the doors and dash until the napkins disintegrated. I decided that sitting on the leather seats would probably soak up as much water as it would be possible to get at, so that’s what I did. I wiggled my ass as far as it would go down into the cracks of the seat and rubbed my torso back and forth on the seat back. I ran the AC on “extra-high” all the way home in an attempt to dehumidify everything, nearly giving myself a case of frostbite. I arrived home with ice crystals in my eyebrows and the entire back half of my outfit wet and stuck to me.

Later in the evening, as I was relating the whole story, DC had the nerve to ask me incredulously, “You leave your windows cracked open every day??” as if that was the silliest thing he had ever heard. He’s currently recovering from his wounds and won’t be able to have visitors for another couple of days, but feel free to send cards and flowers.