On Friday morning steel gray clouds scudded across the sky and a restless breeze washed over the neighborhood, heralding bad weather to come. Hoping for rain, I ducked into my car and turned the key, then glanced over my shoulder as I sped down the driveway, later for work than usual. Then a thought struck me and I lurched to a stop a few feet from the road. My sunglasses, unnecessary that morning, were still in the house. It may have been too shady for shades, but the sun could break through later, leaving me to squint my way home again at the end of the day. I pulled up the parking brake, unclicked my seat belt, and threw open the door.
At that precise moment, the sprinkler in the front yard sprang into action. After the last cycle the head had come to a stop facing the driveway and now, with no warning, it burst on, hurling morning-cold water at my face, my skirt, the inside of my car. I spluttered, jumped out of my seat, and slammed the door, then sprinted onto our porch and out of range. As time ticked, I paused to wipe the drops from my face and watch the sprinkler sweep across the yard, dousing everything in its path.
I laughed, of course, and shook my head. I had to. It had been that kind of week, every day filled with miniature disasters, every night spent in tense tossing instead of sleep, every email and phone call left unanswered. This Friday morning comedy routine only added to it all with such perfection. I wanted to put it in a novel, down to the promise of rain hovering above the scene as if foreshadowing the whole event. It was, however, too well-timed to be real, too slapstick to be believed, and therefore too weird for fiction.
LOL… Isn’t it funny how that works? It’s in the “nobody would ever believe this” vein of thinking, right? Crazy, crazy stuff… You just need to tweak the facts a bit… Have a bolt of lightning from the forthcoming storm hit your metal car right as the sprinkler is drenching you and the car, then have the electric charge pass through your body (not harming you, by the way, save for the superpowers you’ll soon learn you have), travel backwards through the stream of water, into the ground, and set the crab-apple tree in your front yard on fire, while simultaneously causing the underground gas line to explode, catapulting the manhole in the street to fly into the air over a mushroom cloud of smoke and flame, and bursting off all three caps of a nearby fire hydrant, which puts out the tree, the gas line fire, and provides a nice geyser for the local children to play in.
That wouldn’t be too weird, right?
It’s good to have a sense of humor about what would normally be a mishap. 🙂
That’s life.. Stranger then fiction. Amazing description. I could totally picture the scene. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Caryn, three words: Art imitates life.
Your Friday morning belongs somewhere between The Wizard of Oz and The Twilight Zone. 😉
Is it wrong that I’m laughing? Not at you. No, no, no. I’m laughing with you! I’m a slave to my sunglasses too, and would have most likely landed in the same predicament as you. Only you’ve got much more finesse. 😉
LOL, Kyle! You’re right — it’s not that it was too strange for fiction; it simply wasn’t strange enough. 😉
Thanks, Somewhat Voluble. On a different day I might have been more annoyed than amused, but it was just so absurd, and since it was one of the better (or, really, least bad) to have happened that week, I had to smile.
Thanks, Keri! Now if only everything in my life would wrap up perfectly like in a novel, right?
So true, Kath! So true.
Laugh away, Robin. I did, and I’m the one who arrived at work soaking wet.
LOL! Definitely one of those items filed under, “You can’t make this stuff up.”
That is what I find so frustrating about writing fiction. If you were to put something like this in a book, people would say, “Oh, this wouldn’t happen in real life.” And yet that’s where all the best stuff is happening! (Hope this week is better for you!)
I’ll take laughter over tears any day. Hope this week is better.
*pom pom happy vibes*
Amy, I love things like that, though they are usually more amusing and less frustrating.
No kidding, Sandi! But very strange things *do* happen in real life, all the time. And thanks for the good wishes. I’m wishing you a good week too — preferably one without computer problems!
Me too, Pam. You have a good week, too!