I love the rain.  I love the sound of it.  It is relaxing.  Some of the best afternoon naps I have ever had have been against the backdrop of a pouring rain.  Growing up on a vegetable farm, rain was always a welcome sight.  In the summer, when there wasn’t enough rainfall, we would spend hours moving and connecting metal pipes in order to irrigate our crops.  When the rain fell in “buckets”, however, we were spared the pains of irrigating, and sometimes even took the remainder of the day off.

Though I love the rain, I have always preferred not to be caught in it.  When it’s pouring, I would rather be home, not driving down an interstate, situated in between one driver who is texting, and another who is scarfing down fries.  Yesterday afternoon, my wife and son accompanied me to Wal-Mart.  On the way to Wal-Mart, I remarked at how the clouds seemed to indicate that it would be raining fairly soon.  Nevertheless, we went inside with our baby stroller, no umbrella, and care free attitudes that we would make it back to the car before the rain arrived.  We were wrong.

As we approached the garden center checkout line, I could tell that for 2:00pm, it was very dark outside.  My wife and I agreed that we should try to get my son to the car quickly before the rain began.  I proceeded towards the exit, and as soon as I made it a few steps out the door, the rain fell furiously.  My son’s stroller kept him dry during the ordeal, but I was completely drenched.  In fact, I cannot remember the last time I have been caught in such a large downpour.  I managed to keep my son relatively dry while removing him from his stroller.  I then quickly folded the stroller and tossed it into the backseat of our car before diving into the driver’s seat and out of the rain.  Of course, by the time my wife checked out with our items, the rain had passed.  I guess the rain knows how much I love it, and it wanted to show me just how much it loves me too.