It’s raining water...

It was a pleasant evening outside the office - chill, breezy, murky and drizzling. It was the perfect set up to test my latest brilliant theory – “You can walk through the rain, in between the rain drops, without getting wet, if you walk at the right pace”. I walked at different speeds to find the correct speed to win over the rain. But the drizzle seemed to get heavier when I made faster strides and lighter when I paced down. I stepped up and down my pace a few times. Everytime the drizzle seemed to respond accordingly by getting heavier and lighter. Was the nature playing some spooky game with me? Nature must be too jealous to let my brilliant theory to be successful. Damn.

I reached the bus stop just in time to see my bus leaving. Waiting time in between the buses was a quarter of an hour, the drizzle was at the brink of becoming rain and it was one of the few roofless bus stops in The Hague. That was enough to drag me into my favourite thought-topic – Is my life a consolidated version of all the Murphy’s laws? I was not able to conclude which one would make me less wet - Standing in the open which would allow more rain drops to fall on me, or standing under the tree which would mean that I become the target of lesser but larger water drops. I ended up doing what I always do when I am unable to pick a choice – grab a bit of all the options available. I walked back and forth between open and under the tree till my bus arrived five minutes late. The guy-at-the-bus-stop (who was aptly dressed for the occasion with long coat and cap) was staring at me all the time with a quizzical look.

Inside the bus, when I checked if the stuffs inside my bag had got wet, I found out that I had an umbrella. Damn. Do I have anything called memory? I hastily hid the umbrella so that the guy-at-the-bus-stop (who had boarded the bus with me) wouldn’t see it. I don’t fancy random guys jumping into conclusion that I am a freak. But, I couldn’t prevent the voice-inside-my-head from mocking at me, “What a loser”.

I got down at my stop and waited for the bus (and the guy-at-the-bus-stop, who was in the bus) to move away. After the bus went out of sight, I opened my umbrella and started walking towards the tram stop. The wind was so heavy that i found it tough to hold on to the umbrella. I was getting wet in spite of the umbrella. Walking towards the tram stop, I saw a tram halting at the stop. A man and a woman ran from opposite directions towards the tram stop. They were at the wrong side of the tram. The woman reached the tram stop first and waited for the man. When the man joined her, they both ran around the tram towards its entrances by crossing the tram line at points where they are not supposed to. Moments before they could reach the entrance, the doors closed and the tram left. I couldn’t help chuckling at the thought that if the woman had gone around the tram by the time she was waiting for the man and had kept the doors open, they could have taken that tram. Hahaha... Poor choice always yeilds poor result.

And then suddenly the truth dawned upon me. The tram that had just left was the one I was supposed to take. I was so engrossed by the man and the woman that I didn’t realize that it was my tram that they and eventually I missed. If I hadn’t bothered to open the umbrella, I wouldn’t have been struggling to keep my umbrella from flying away, and I could have easily reached the tram stop by the time the tram was there. Hmmm… Poor choice always yeilds poor result.

I reached the tram stop. The voice-inside-my-head was laughing at me so loudly that I was afraid that the others would hear it. The man and the woman who had missed the tram were in a giggling fit. They then went on a smooching spree. Damn. Why do people always get hyper romantic when they are around me? I stood there next to the smooching couple, embarrassed and shy, staring at my shoes. I thought that if that scene had been in an Indian movie, it would have been invariably followed by a song. My thought chain was broken by the peroxide blonde who was busy blowing rings of cigarette smoke at my direction. I couldn’t move away as it was raining. I sent a brief threat to the God that I would denounce Him if He dares to bless me with a Smokin’ Joe as my wife.

The next tram arrived after twenty minutes and I reached my flat tired, hungry, cold and drenched. Rainy days are back.