Falling on Your Head Like a Tragedy

[7:40 AM] Wake up. Check the Yahoo! Weather app. Look out window. Gloomy, fog hugging everything like lonely specters, but apparently there's a 0% chance of rain* predicted all day. Odd.

[8:10 AM] Leave for work. "Aren't you going to take an umbrella?" asks wife. "No reason to," I say. "Forecast says there's a 0% chance of rain." I did my due diligence!

[Some indeterminate time in the afternoon] Raining.

[6:05 PM] Punch out**. Still raining. Walk to subway station. Get wet. Get smug looks from people who have umbrellas and know better than to trust meteorological guesswork.

Now...I don't expect the forecast to be accurate all of the time, or even most of the time, but to me 0% -- at least by my weird understanding of math -- means "impossible," or "The Day the Clown Cried is getting released in theaters before this happens," or "I'm trusting this lying app again."

There's rarely a sure thing. Especially when the weather is involved. That's why they call it weather***.

It could be a lot worse. Instead of raindrops falling on my head, it could have been coconuts. Or durians. Or bombs.

Drop bears.

Space debris.

Pigeon shit.




* my favorite homophone!

** Word to King Hippo and idioms that will confuse some people under 25.

*** Word to David Mamet.