Drenched!

It happened last week but the British weather haunts me like the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Last Tuesday I decided to head to the shop to buy a few things at lunch. It’s not too far about a five minute walking distance but as I stared from the window I saw tiny speckles of droplets splash against the window. Thinking it was a light shower, I plugged in my digital radio, slipped on the rain coat and headed out. Within a couple of minutes the sky decided to vomit gushes of water all over the UK. I flipped up my hood and thought that it was just a brief down pour but I was wrong. Within thirty seconds my trousers became soaked until they stuck to my legs. My brown shoes became a darker shade as I found it too hard to dodge the puddles. However, it was my jacket that let me down*. I was about midway through my journey when I started to feel the water trickling down my back causing me to sway all over the place. As the rain come bucketing down the jacket became less resistant to the water, I looked up at the sky silently asking for it to show some mercy for someone who wanted just to buy something to eat. There was no mercy at all, and it flew down ferociously until it was seeping through my jacket and reaching my skin.

I then heard a pop in my ears. At the time Bjork was playing and had thought it was a quirky beeb from her song. It wasn’t. It was my radio dying on me. I quickly unzipped my pocket and scooped up my radio and a small puddle of water. The rain had gotten through to the radio and the screen was flickering blue and white until there was crackling, a bit of fuzziness and then a flatline. My digital radio had perished. No more 1xtra, 6Music, BBC7, World Service they were all taken from me and instead it would have to be local radio for the next few weeks with the cheesy DJ deceiving the naïve into thinking he’s cool when really he’s a washed up prick. ‘Texas, what a great new band!’ I was irascible, wet and there was nothing I could do apart from venture forth. I carried on to the shop dripping all over the floor and the newspapers as I leaned over to the magazines for anything of interest. After deciding there was nothing about I brought my sandwich where the woman at the counter gave me the stink eye for creating a small reservoir in between the pot noodle and soup aisle. Handing over my wet coins I headed back in the rain.

Although it whipped across my face making it red I decided to accept the weather. It was raining and I was outside, there were a lot graver situations I could have been in. Besides I could not have gotten more soaked considering my clothes had absorbed half the River Ouse. So I flipped my hood down and casually made my way back in similar fashion as the movements seen in the opening credits of Superbad.



* I later found out that my jacket is only shower proof.