Amazing how much it rains
this morning. I can shower outside if I
so desire because the water is coming out of the sky like a giant
power-wash. I run from the front door to
my car, a distance of maybe fifty feet, and my coat is dripping so much that I
can feel it down my backside in the front seat.
Even the tree that still has some leaves on it offers absolutely no
quarter.
This is when I say my
first jesuschrist of the morning.
I have to stop by the post
office and mail a few bills. This seems
like a grand idea until I realize too late that I must plow through pond #1 of
the morning, on the bridge over the river at the bottom of the hill by my
house. After making like Captain Nemo
and saying my second jesuschrist of
the day, I head uphill and turn toward the post office. This is where the second lightbulb moment
hits me: I have to cross another bridge as I zigzag back over the same
river. Again, my car becomes a
submersible, and again I loudly breathe out jesuschrist.
I decide not to drop the
envelopes into the drive-by box because it is probably full of water. The Nor’easter producing the torrential
rainfall is actually blowing the water sideways. I make the somewhat terrifying decision to
run from the car into the post office to mail my stuff from inside. The short dash, although only about ten feet,
drenches me anew as I run in and out in record time, and, yet again, the
expression jesuschrist crosses my
lips.
Pulling out of the post
office, I am relieved to turn right, which means that I don’t have to cross the
river again. I am now about a quarter of
a mile from where the road always floods out, but I’m heading south, which is
uphill. I should be good to go for about
three miles until I hit another river. I
notice while sitting at the light that one of the street drains is spewing
water three feet into the air. How I can
even see this amazes me because it is raining so hard and so fast that the
wipers cannot keep pace. Of course, my
reaction is jesuschrist.
My
brilliant plan to go uphill for a few miles and avoid more flooding takes a
nasty turn at the top of the hill about a half-mile later. For some reason, water is puddling badly near
the top of the hill by the academy. This
makes no sense to me as we are all on a fairly steep hill, but water is several
inches deep and covering the entire upper road, as if it has suddenly decided
to defy the Laws of Nature. Huge waves
form as we all plow through, hoping the light stays green so we don’t stall
out. Jesuschrist.
I decide at this point
that trying to go the main route is probably a bad idea because the small river
a few miles south usually spills over and closes the road in flash flood
conditions, which we are experiencing at the moment. I know this because the nearby city of
Peabody is already closed and underwater.
I go the scenic route, instead, deciding that the very hilly route 125
is my best bet. I sigh jesuschrist twice more just getting from Main Street over
to the two-lane highway as twice more I go completely under the waves caused by
my own car going one direction and giant school buses coming from the other
direction.
I am only on route 125 for
about two miles, but several dips in the road cause me to mouth out jesuschrist at least two more times
before I finally turn onto back roads that lead toward my job. I have a choice: Drive by the baseball fields
that flood, or drive straight through the state park where the street is
dangerously close to the ponds and where I will have to cross a brook that
often rises quickly over the road (I’ve actually passed ducks swimming in the
roadway there). I decide to take my
chances with the ball fields as I cannot see well enough to make it past the
real ponds without sliding into one. In
the three-mile ride I have left to work, I mutter jesuschrist no less than four times as I hit several more puddles
that are the size of Olympic swimming pools.
When I finally arrive at
work, I need to sit in my car for a few moments, partially because it is
pouring buckets and I have to dash a good distance through the rivulet-riddled
lot, and partially because I am so damned relieved to have made it to work
without drowning or hydroplaning into oblivion.
As I enter the building, dripping and bringing Mother Nature inside with
me, the custodian laughs and calls me Noah.
“Maybe not Noah,” I laugh,
“but I did say jesuschrist about
fifteen times on my way in. I’m not sure
if I were praying, swearing, or both.”
Once I get to my room, I
have to pull down the shades (except the trash bag one I had to tape up, so it
doesn’t do anything but sit there half-open).
I cannot look at the rain any longer.
It’s too depressing, too stressful, too … gray. It rains so completely that I cannot see the
building wing that sits parallel to mine across a small field. All I can see is the constant barrage of
rain, still coming down like a power-washer and making the steady whooshing
noise that sounds like the inside of a wind tunnel.
The sun breaks out for all
of fifteen minutes just before lunch then retreats behind more rain, poking its
rays out like Bradbury’s short story “All Summer In a Day.” It rains still when I leave to come home
again, but some of the drains have cleared, the steadiness of the storm has
begun to abate, and the daylight is just enough to prevent my headlights from
being necessary. When it’s all over,
some areas are due to total four to six inches of rain in less than twenty-four
hours.
Jesuschrist. That’s like four to six feet of snow.
Relief sets in. I can deal with a damp lower back, a few mild
expletives, and several attempts to become Captain Nemo because I’m not
shoveling mounds of snow. Sometimes we
have to take the small victories when we are lucky enough to get them.
