Bagyo Season

It used to be that when it started raining, the lights would go out.

An after effect of lightning I guess…but of course, in those days, when the electricity goes, the water pumps stop working, and then the water goes too.

So it’s dark, there’s nothing to watch, no lights to read by, no television, boring boring radio programs, because it was kept on the news channel to find out how long the electricity would be out, and to add insult to injury, no running water.

At first, you try and say the magic words to make the rain stop.

“Rain, rain go away. Come again another day. Little girls just want to play.”

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t but in case it doesn’t…

There’s only one thing left to do…

Play in the rain.

We used to have these really old and rusty drainage pipes around the roof.

They, by the way, also had an enormous amount of holes in them. When the rain would really fall down hard, a lot of water would come rushing through those holes. It was like having several open showerheads every couple of feet.

It was a good thing too… since there were a lot of us vying for the one which had the most water coming through.

It was always brisk and icy cold, and your head would feel like it was being pounded on by a gazillion siblings hands slapping you on the top of your head. Which it was occasionally, I grant you, as they were trying to get you out of the best water spot, but most times, it was just the water falling hard.

Just kidding….

Mostly, the argument for the best water spot stops when Dad, driven by the increasing heat and humidity of his unventilated bedroom, would come out in his shorts and soap and shampoo in hand, would take the best spot and take his bath right out there in the rain.

We used to splash and run around a lot, spray each other with water, slip and slide around and fall on our butts. It was a lot of fun. A lot of silliness comes out of you when you’re playing in the rain.

There were conflicting advice when we played in the rain; someone had the opinion that it was the cleanest water possible since it came straight out of the sky. It was said to be so clean that it was caught, blessed and used as holy water.

Some said it was dirty as it passed through all the pollution as it comes down. You had to bathe with tap water after getting rained on otherwise it would make you sick.

In all honestly, I stopped playing in the rain the moment a teacher told our class about acid rain.

She said that there were places where it would rain acid instead of water and would burn everything in its path.

As I used to stick out my tongue to catch drops of rain falling down, I was horrified by a vision of me standing around looking towards the sky when acid starts pouring on me.

I had a cartoon vision of me as Wile E. Coyote looking up just as liquid fire lands on him when the roadrunner again outwits him. There he is, all alone, as he stands burned to a crisp with eyes wide open blinking in surprise.

That’s exactly how I pictured myself in case acid falls on me.

I rather miss my other vision…the one that I used to play in my head as we ran around in the rain.

Of Gene Kelly, after he leaves Debbie Reynolds at her house, and waves his driver to go on without him.

I think you can see Eric doing his version of Gene Kelly’s shtick in this picture.

Too-doo-root-doo

We were singing and dancing in… the rain.