Adventure in the Rain

Posted on November 9, 2002 in Possessions Weather

One minute, I watched Lynn dress to go to the bank. I slipped back into slumber. A few dream moments later, the doorbell rang, repeatedly. It was clear that whoever it was had no intention of leaving me to my stupor, so I called out “OK. OK. I’m coming. Give me a minute.”

Lynn replied, meekly: “OK.”

I aborted my plan to find decent clothes and ran to the front door holding a yellow t-shirt over my crotch. Lynn stumbled in and reported that the car had stalled at El Toro and Portola. I seized some sweat shorts and the nearest golf shirt; jerked on some socks and shoes; and ran out to the truck with my chagrined wife.

She reported that she’d locked her keys in the car without the flashers. The driver behind her drove her back up the hill.

It wasn’t just raining: we were dead center in the precipitating cloud. I coasted carefully down El Toro until we spotted the car. Enroute, Lynn called 911 to tell them about the stalled vehicle. I parked in a divider area between her car and the right turn lane (how thoughtful of the City of Lake Forest to have provided a painted space large enough to fit my truck!), switched on the emergency lights, and ran over to Lynn’s car, all the while hoping that my sweats didn’t slip and show the world the hideous glory of my hirsute moon (which I do not shave.)

The ignition alert screamed as I entered. I turned the keys, punched the gas, and the engine started. I ran back to tell Lynn. She handed me the cel phone and left me to explain to AAA what was going on. The operator chuckled and told us not to hesitate to call back if the motor coughed out again.

About ten minutes later, as I followed Lynn home from the bank, I remembered the 911 call. I called back, was connected to the Sheriff’s department, and told them that the emergency had passed. “I just wanted to be sure that the poor guy wasn’t out there in the rain looking for us still,” I explained. The dispatcher laughed and promised to recall him. I turned up the CD player and listened to the middle parts of Copland’s Billy the Kid and envied, for once, the parched country where the outlaw had made his name.

(This was inconvenient, but rain, rain, please don’t go away.)