10.24.2007 - 3:05 p.m.

I go to leave the building my boss�s office is in to find several students clustered by the door. Outside, at 2:30 in the afternoon, it is dark enough that the daylight sensors on the path lamps have tripped. It is raining hard, and the brick pathway is underwater.

�There�s nothing for it,� one student says to the other. �There�s only one way through this to my next class� and it involves me looking like an idiot.� And with that, he kicks off his flipflops, rolls up his jeans nearly to his knees, and sets his backpack on his head. �Ready?� he asks the girl with him, who has put up her hood and is hugging her books to her chest.

�Maybe we should stop at the bookstore and buy an actual umbrella,� she muses as they head out into the downpour.

I am carrying my laptop and a pile of handouts to copy for tomorrow�s workshops. I have no coat, and my pants are both long and not very cuffable. There is a way through this to my office. It involves getting wet. I stuff my laptop and handouts up my shirt and make the trudge.

Which I secretly glory in. I have no idea why, I do not care why, but the rain plasters my hair down in wet clumps, my glasses become suspect as vision aids, my pants stick to my calves, and I love it. A peal of thunder makes a girl near me jump, and I smile, gleeful almost to the point of vibrating. Nothing normal matters.

I cannot imagine why people buy umbrellas.

Only, an hour later, my sleeves are still damp and, quite honestly, freezing. So are the lower halves of my pant legs, really. And it�s still two hours until quitting time. There is a price for everything, isn't there.

-stonebridge

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