The Umbrella Does Nothing

We're had a wicked storm this evening. The lightning is so bright I could see clearly for a mile and the thunder was so loud I could hear it over the hum of the various heating and cooling machines at work. It wasn't so wicked on the way home, though. It was raining so hard it felt like little bullets falling from the sky and puncturing my skin. Even though I was carrying an umbrella, I still got completely drenched, even before I slipped down from the shoulderless road into a sewage ditch.

Funny story, actually. They've been doing construction on my road for about a month and a half now, so all the traffic is jammed into two lanes on the close side of the road. There was no room for a shoulder, so they just got rid of it. Seeing as there's no sidewalk for most of my journey either, and the opposite side of the road is mangled beyond recognition, I'm forced to walk on a little hill between the road and a nice little ditch. Normally it's no big deal, but tonight it was pretty slippery and cars kept splashing me and I lost my footing and tumbled down. My groceries survived. My $3.54 Mocha didn't.

There was a group of people walking a little ways behind me. When I took my fall the girl had a nice, hardy laugh and they continued walking. I gathered my belongings and continued walking. When I got home, I met the group of people again. It turns out they either live or frequently visit the apartment downstairs and across the hall. I immediately let our guard dog out, hoping she'd at least maim one of them, but she only ran down the stairs, took a step in the rain, and ran back into the apartment. Now she'd just staring at me and moaning, waiting for me to make the rain stop.

Ah, my groceries. Two of my favorite things, especially together. Hazelnut coffee and the original Oreos. Whenever I go into a store in my Petsmart shirt, people always think I'm an employee and ask me questions, despite my shirt being the color of the sky and most places' shirts being the color of fire. Apparently it's the nametag. One lady wanted to know what to do when an item doesn't show up on the U-scan as being on sale, when it's clearly marked as such. A guy wanted to know where the flag holders were. A little old lady needed help getting a box of pasta from an upper shelf. Another lady wanted to know the difference between two espresso drinks. I took my nametag off at that point.

Since Meijer was having a sale, I picked up 2 packs of Oreos and 4 cans of coffee. I had to hold the bottom can of coffee and rest my chin on the top can because the Oreos took all the attention of my other hand. I must have been a sight because the greeter asked me twice if I needed a cart. I would have taken it had I not already been almost to the checkout. I passed the lady who was having trouble with the U-scan (who had also suggested I take off my nametag), who I don't think had been helped yet. I checked out and left. I really do prefer using the U-Scan because it's generally faster than having a trained cashier scan your items, people don't use them much so there's almost always a free one open, and after smiling at people all day sometimes I want to deal with a machine.

And I just used my Liberty City Team Deathmatch time (formerly my Building a kickass downtown area for my Sims time, but there was a horrible accident involving Service pack 3 and an ancient USB driver from a company that apparently no longer makes USB chipsets) blogging and doing laundry. Awesome.