It’s
a rough day when you come home barefoot, jeans rolled up, covered in muck,
dripping with sweat, and running off of ten Oreos and a cup off black coffee.
Your body feels disgusting and tired, your skin soiled and stench, and your
mind in a million places at once. This is what at the end of season four of
Arrested Development can do to you.
Jukebox,
San, and I were left staring at the blank Netflix screen with mixed feelings of
admiration and disgust. At least, that is what I felt. I refuse to be the source
of spoilers but any fully fledged AD fan knows what I’m talking about. We were
rambling, rambling….
“There has to be something else… a
movie! They’ll make a movie. Or another season? They can do that, right? There
has to be something else.”
Disheartened, I looked at my friends.
Their eyes were distanced.
“We could walk to the coffee shop?”
“Yeah! Yeah, let’s do that!”
We
stumbled down Jukebox’s hardwood stairs (or was it up? I cannot remember. I was so distraught.), and
we threw our shoes on.
Earlier
I had received notice from my Padre that there was a flash flood notice. So, I
knew there was a flash flood coming. I had even mentioned it to my friends. But
the weather outside looked tolerable, just a little grey, so we decided to make
the voyage anyway.
“I’m the only one with an umbrella, and
it is tiny and broken, so it will only work for one person. Juke, do you have
one here at home?”
He
grinned. “Yeah, but I don’t want to carry it.”
We’re
classic eighteen year old risk takers.
San
had a waterproof sports jacket from our old high school that wasn’t so
waterproof, but it really only was drizzling at the time, so we set off anyway.
The
walk began nicely enough. We were by Lake Tashitat, a dirtied manmade thing, so
the area was low sort of like a bowl from the higher hills of
Massachusetts.
It
was comical how tragedy struck. The rain built steadily, so we did not notice
there was a problem until the roar of torrential downpour deafened all sound,
and we were shouting to hear one another. Juke’s red hoodie was soaked, and he
was soon to be soaked to the bone. San was frantically handing me precious
electronics to stick down my hoodie and in the pockets of my skinny jeans, so
it appeared with all my electronics and
hers together as though I was spontaneously growing several phone shaped tumors
(symbolic of the electronic wave-drenched times, I like to imagine.) (The
parenthetical within a first person narrative seems redundant and self-serving…
if a first person narrative can GET more so).
By
attempting to make the sounds issuing from our mouths audible, we eventually
decided to go back to Juke’s house to drop him off. Lighting began to crash,
and I looked nervously up at my dinky shield from the elements.
You
know, only 10% of people struck by lightning die. Thank Zeus.
We
were back on Juke’s porch. His mom was laughing at our attempt to retrieve
caffeine and victuals sympathetically. San and I made an agreement to head
towards her house so that I could catch a ride back to the Bean cave. I was
sitting on the porch peeling off my brown lace-ups and hot pink socks.
“Can I leave my shoes here?”
I re-adjusted the plethora of electronics and
set off with San following our numerous farewells and attempts to sneak past a
few potentially inebriated boaters returning from summer fun on Lake Crapitash.
We were barefoot and defiant against the downpour that arrested our spontaneous
afternoon attempt to forget the latest and last development on our favorite
show.
The
walk was brief enough, and I remember only explaining why puddles are cesspools
and should not be splashed around in joyfully. You say buzz kill, but I remind
you I was not struck by lightning.
I
was given a ride home by San’s mom (neither of us can drive), and I stumbled into
my home short my favorite shoes, my normal energy, and my dignity.
I
was caught in the rain again all because Ron Howard decided to scramble my mind
and my afternoon. Next entry, I’ll tell the first rain story.
Bean
out.
