I rode my bike to work today. It took 6 minutes, including waiting to get across the single busy street.
Nice, I thought. I will have to do this more often.
Then it started raining. And raining. And it continued raining. When I left work, it was actually raining. Not drizzling, like it normally does in this part of the world, nor down-pouring, but just a constant, steady rain.
I didn't exactly plan for this. It goes back to the age-old question: when the weather report says 30% chance of rain, does that mean a 30% chance that it will rain at some point during the hour, or does that mean that there is a 30% chance that it will be raining at any given point in the hour (i.e. about 20 minutes of the hour)? Or are the weather people just often wrong?
I didn't have a raincoat. But I gamely got on my bike and set off, wearing just my corduroy jacket.
I got wet and cold and wetter and colder. If there is anything I despise, it is being wet and cold.
I went looking for a store that I thought was on a particular corner, and it wasn't, and I got more wet and more cold. Then I went to the grocery store and I had a terribly difficult time locking my bike because the front tire was too big for the allotted bike space, and I got still more wet and still more cold.
I thought about being annoyed and frustrated. I thought about despairing because everything was going wrong, wrong, wrong. But then I realized that yes, I was wet. Yes, I was cold. But I was only six minutes away from a warm, dry apartment, full of warm, dry sweatshirts, and I watched unconcernedly as the rain dripped off the end of my helmet's visor. I smiled at the other biker at the corner.
And then I wheeled my bike into the kitchen so it could drip on the linoleum, and I took off all my dripping outer layers right there so that they wouldn't get the carpet wet, and I put on flannel pajama pants and a sweatshirt and socks and curled up in a fuzzy blanket.
Nice, I thought. I will have to do this more often.
Then it started raining. And raining. And it continued raining. When I left work, it was actually raining. Not drizzling, like it normally does in this part of the world, nor down-pouring, but just a constant, steady rain.
I didn't exactly plan for this. It goes back to the age-old question: when the weather report says 30% chance of rain, does that mean a 30% chance that it will rain at some point during the hour, or does that mean that there is a 30% chance that it will be raining at any given point in the hour (i.e. about 20 minutes of the hour)? Or are the weather people just often wrong?
I didn't have a raincoat. But I gamely got on my bike and set off, wearing just my corduroy jacket.
I got wet and cold and wetter and colder. If there is anything I despise, it is being wet and cold.
I went looking for a store that I thought was on a particular corner, and it wasn't, and I got more wet and more cold. Then I went to the grocery store and I had a terribly difficult time locking my bike because the front tire was too big for the allotted bike space, and I got still more wet and still more cold.
I thought about being annoyed and frustrated. I thought about despairing because everything was going wrong, wrong, wrong. But then I realized that yes, I was wet. Yes, I was cold. But I was only six minutes away from a warm, dry apartment, full of warm, dry sweatshirts, and I watched unconcernedly as the rain dripped off the end of my helmet's visor. I smiled at the other biker at the corner.
And then I wheeled my bike into the kitchen so it could drip on the linoleum, and I took off all my dripping outer layers right there so that they wouldn't get the carpet wet, and I put on flannel pajama pants and a sweatshirt and socks and curled up in a fuzzy blanket.
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