. . . just wait a few minutes. We've all heard some variation of this seemingly age-old phrase. I'm not doing a history of that, by the way (I heard that sigh of relief), but I did just learn, mere seconds ago, that Mark Twain said it first, so maybe it's not an ancient proverb, after all.
Just about every region claims this, and almost all of them are wrong. But I've learned during my time in DeKalb, that this is one of those places that is telling the truth. Back in Elmhurst, Addison and Joliet, one of the first things I'd do every morning while trying to convince myself to go to work was check the weather. It was usually accurate or close enough for me. In DeKalb? I've decided to give up on it. The forecast is correct maybe fifty percent of the time, and I'm not going to rely on a coin flip.
Today was the last straw because I'd been promised a nice cool day of thunderstorms. The way my apartment is placed, I can open the east windows wide and never get the floor wet, even on the stormiest day. The west windows? I wouldn't even leave them open a crack. Rain gets in there like little wet bullets.
I work at my kitchen table, which faces the east. I looked forward to the calming effects the rain would have on me, as Mondays are the busiest days at work, and it can easily turn me into a flailing jagged ball of stress.
(There is also something wonderful about being inside while it's raining out. Maybe it's the smell of the storm through a screened window. I always did love that.)
What did I get instead? A half an hour of the weather I wanted, and then a cloudy humid breezeless blah for the rest of the day. At the very least it wasn't a stressful day. Not once did I feel the desire to hang up on an unruly customer. I'd never actually do it, but the thought doesn't just creep in--it busts the fucking door down and announces its presence in a rich baritone.
I haven't even mentioned the surprise rainstorms that suddenly erupt on previously pleasant and sunny days. Storm warnings that sometimes necessitate the air raid sirens also fail to deliver on a regular basis. I got a tornado warning recently, the kind that makes your phone scream terrible noises at you with messages to seek shelter immediately. Out here I felt sure that I should probably take these more seriously than the ones we got in Elmhurst, but when I saw none of my neighbors gave a shit about it, I followed suit.
I'm irritated about barely getting a spring this year. I should expect it by now, but it is my favorite season. It was always just barely cool enough to make a jacket mandatory, and then it went straight into the eighties heat.
Do you know what this means? I've officially become a middle-aged man. I've never complained about weather before in my entire life, and here I am devoting a GF to it. I'm starting to approach 50 a li'l, and I look pretty good for my age. Alcohol is supposed to age you beyond your years, but I suspect it may have accidentally preserved me instead, like a caveman who has tripped and found himself in a bog, although my dad looked young for his age when he passed. He was just about to turn 60 and looked like he was in his late forties. So maybe I'm full of shit about the booze.
At any rate, the years have finally caught up. I no longer have a lawn, so I can't tell kids to get off of it. Is it too soon to worry about developing a taste for Werther's Original? I *do* like Necco wafers . . .
