Rainy Daze

It has been raining all morning. And afternoon. Ok, it’s basically been raining since Saturday. In New York City, this weather brings a certain type of lethargy. It’s the “why is the subway 4 blocks from my house” lethargy. Or the “I am soaking wet by the time I get to work because the bus didn’t come for 14 minutes” lethargy. Or it’s the “I was stabbed in the eye 5 times by an umbrella and now I can’t see” lethargy. People look soaked, dejected, and depressed. Sort of like an entire city of Eeyores.

I never had an appreciation of how this terrible weather can affect your mood until I started living in a city that requires an outside commute. In Florida, you got in your car and besides driving 5 MPH below the speed limit, you were fine. It sucked when it was raining because you couldn’t go to the pool or beach, but most of the time it rained for an hour, and then you were back out on the beach, or on your chaise lounge. Here, when it rains, it POURS. Literally. In New York, when it starts to rain, you know it is not likely to stop for a few days. Also, the rain here is not like god saying “oh the grass looks yellow, let me give it a sprinkle,” it’s more like god saying “YOUR ENTIRE CITY HAS WRONGED ME AND THEREFORE YOU ARE TO DIE OF A FLOOD LIKE NOAH AND HIS ARK.”

The one respite from this monsoon weather is scaffolding. TGFS. Thank God For Scaffolding. I often plan my walks during monsoon days by picking the side of the street with the most scaffolding. Most routes have scaffolding on one side of the street or the other. So I zig zag my way to my destination. But just when you think you are safe under some scaffolding, a car pulls up too close to the curb, into the huge puddles of water (because why would the drainage in this city be any better than the public transit system?) and sprays a high-tide wave of water on all innocent bystanders. This morning, I decided to take the bus to work because the subway never works in the rain. Don’t ask me why. It baffles me that a public transit system specifically designed to go UNDERGROUND, away from the rain, is somehow ALWAYS effed up when there is any sort of weather. Hot, cold, snow, rain, anything besides 72 degrees and sunny. Anyway, I digress, you have already heard me gripe enough about the subway. This morning, after waiting 10 minutes in pouring rain for a bus, I was already wet. Like to the very last layer. And then the bus finally pulled up and it sprayed a tsunami-like wave puddle. Happy Monday to us.

Now as I mentioned, some New Yorkers find it necessary to carry umbrellas. I do not understand this because the rain here does not fall from the sky. It comes from east and west, north and even sometimes from the south. An umbrella does not help protect anything except MAYBE the top of your head. And even then, the wind is constantly turning umbrellas inside out. There’s a phenomenon here called the “5 block umbrella.” Basically, you buy it on the street for $5, and it lasts you exactly 1 block per dollar you paid for it. On every corner, you will see what I call an “umbrella graveyard,” where piles of these 5-block-umbrellas have reached their 5-block capacity, and are laid to rest in various stages of broken. Torn from their metal bones, inside out, and tossed away. Not worth it.

A few years ago, I invested in a rain jacket, and it is the best purchase I have ever made in New York. Don’t get me wrong, I still get completely soaked wherever my rain coat doesn’t cover, but at least it gives me a semblance of dry, and I can maneuver easier around the aforementioned umbrella dummies. The one great thing about this rain, the temperature has dropped 30 degrees! It was 68 degrees this morning. I’ll take it! Stay dry, y’all.