It'll Be a Good Story...

This past weekend, my husband and I drove to our family cottage for an unwind weekend.  The fan motor on our central air had a factory defect and our house is HOT, so we headed north for some cooler air and some time without fewer screens. 

On our first morning, my husband woke up early to digestive distress.  He was upset because the sun was out and the air was nice and warm without being too sweltery and he was stuck inside running to the bathroom every half hour. 

His upset resolved around 10:30 and we decided it was safe to go for a bike ride.  We chose a familiar route and wheeled away.  It wasn't until we reached our turnaround destination, some 15 km from home base, that we saw the dark black-green clouds surrounding us...leaving only a small patch of blue above our heads.  We had one errand to run and I thought to myself, "We're going to be racing this home."

COVID times and courtesy dictate that only one member of your party enter the store, so my husband went in to make his purchase and left me to watch our bicycles.  No sooner had the door swung shut behind him than the rain began to fall on me and our bicycles.  It started with a light sprinkle but swiftly transformed into sheets and sheets of torrential downpour.  I sought shelter under a cedar tree lining someone's property on the roadside.  My husband ran out from the store.  We stood under the cedar tree hugging each other for warmth as Mother Nature hurled bucket after bucket of cold rain on top of us.  I counselled my husband to keep his bike helmet on lest it turn to hail.  Which it did.

When I heard the thunder, I recalled my girl guide training and thought we should seek shelter in the store we had just patronized rather than remaining under the tree's natural lightning rod.  The proprietor allowed us in, asked us not to drip on anything, and requested we sanitize our hands...COVID times again. We stood in his entryway, slowly saturating the carpet beneath us, waiting for clear skies or rescue.

We were rescued by my cousin in the neighbouring cottage who happened to be coming into town for groceries.  We drove back with our bikes strapped to the rack, marvelling at the number of downed trees and how quickly some chainsaw-wielding do-gooder had removed them from the roadway. The cardboard box holding the cord we had purchased, as well as the emergency toilet paper in our saddle bags had turned to mush.

It was a terrible morning, but it'll be a good story.

I'm hopeful this is a metaphor for our times.