Monday, Jan. 14, 42 A.B.
It's Raining
If I were a newspaper, that's what my headline would be. Maybe next to a file photo of a raindrop and the caption "Why it's a wet, wet world tonight." I'd skip the eyewitness interviews, though. And the opinions of the experts as to when it might stop, and what caused it, and when we can expect our next disastrous flood, and how floods impact different areas of the economy differently. Instead of all that, I'd just let the rain speak for itself.
"Pitter patter... pitter patter... pit pit... pat...."
I don't understand why Whitney Houston and Celine Dion don't just hang it up in the face of competition as stiff as that.
But who am I fooling? I am not a newspaper. My folds are much deeper, and it's been years since I've allowed a boy on a bike to toss me into the side of a house. Even if I were a newspaper, I wouldn't have a headline. I'm much too self-effacing for that. My page one is blank. So are my pages 2 thru 8. "It's Raining" would only appear on page 9 - and then only in print too small to be seen easily. If any of my subscribers opened me up hoping to find out if it's raining or not, they'd be much better off just touching my surface and seeing if I was soaking wet.
The more adventurous types could simply pick me up and see if I trickled down their leg.
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My Weather Almanac tells me that Columbus has 136 wet days a year. That's roughly halfway between the number of wet days Seattle gets (157) and the number Spokane gets (113) and yet Columbus is NOT halfway between those two cities.
It's stuff like that which makes me itch even while reclining in a tub of Lanacane....
Which reminds me: Time to check today's Dry Itchy Skin Forecast map!
Hmmmm... Seems I'm in an area of Mild Concern, with a large horseshoe-shaped region of Moderate Concern extending from Texas, up through Michigan, and then down to Virginia and North Carolina.
There's an odd splotch of Moderate Concern in northwest Ohio, too. Better check the official City-By-City Forecast, just to be sure I don't need to practice scratching before I go to bed tonight.... Looks like I'm in the clear. Then again, they're telling me that the South is the best area to be even though the mere thought of Mississippi makes me VERY itchy. Might be time for me to rub some Anti-Superiority Cream into my head again. As a Yankee, seems I have a natural tendency to suffer from ego inflammation, though it's usually not quite this bad in the winter....
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I'm not sure how much rain we're getting (since I'm an even worse rain gauge than I am a newspaper), but it probably won't be enough to bring us back to normal. It must be a discouraging time for January right now - only 14 days old and already 0.60" below normal. If it were a month which had sprung from my loins, all my relatives would probably be demanding that I go have it tested for ingrown cloudbursts.
I'm just glad that we're getting rain instead of shellac. Did you know that shellac is a lac? Did you know that lac is a resinous secretion of insects? I swear, if I ever wake up and find I have to wade through even 0.25" of shellac to get my morning newspaper, I just might up and move to Mississippi....
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(©Now by DJ Birtcher while wondering if there's a
quick and easy way to distinguish rain from frog snot)
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POP QUIZ: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Which one?
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