rain, kinda (a throwback)

so, you’d THINK that a guy who’s first piece (or at least ONE of the first pieces…i’d have to check on that) on this page was about how for every drop of rain that hits an austinite’s windshield they lose 1/4th an iq point would have driving in the rain mastered. have it down. know when to strike, where to strike, and how to strike in order to slide through traffic like a coke dealer through a customs check…

and i do.

the fit hit the shan, weather-wise, around 3:30 or so at our office…there is a certain term people use for skies that dark…”night”. it was raining SIDEWAYS. flash-flood watches. and flash-flood warnings. no thunder. no lightening. no tornadic activity. just a shit load of rain (which is an actual meteorological term in this part of the country). so, when i saw this, i started my brain to thinking..how the FUCK can i roll out of the office early, being the only tech person here (except for marcus, our web guru) and have it look okay? then i remembered the overtime concerns….they HATE for us to get too much overtime lately…and with the holiday weekend, i’ll get plenty of it. so anytime i CAN cut out, and DO, it’s seen as a good thing…and i had been on the clock since 7:45 am….

now, i know what you corporate types are thinking. i do. i had always thought a nine-to-five day MEANT a nine-to-five day; aka eight hours. i’d worked in nothing but radio and record stores and clubs my whole life; how was i to know better? then i began dating a corporate girl, and found out that MOST of the world works an EIGHT to five (or eight-thirty to five-thirty) day so that way their hour lunch is off the clock…in the two years i’ve been with my company, i’ve taken maybe two hour-long lunches…and one of them was with her (the other with a buddy of mine who just happens to be a grammy award winning piano player and we had lots to catch up on).

i usually eat in about 15 minutes; and in the office would eat at my desk and keep working…the point being (and it took long enough for me to get here, huh?) that if i start my day at (or around) 8:00, they like me to roll out around 4:00. so starting at 7:45, and not rolling out till 4:15, i still picked up a bit of overtime, AND got out early…

understand, i wasn’t trying to beat the storm…or check on the house or the dogs or whatever. i KNEW the dogs were fine. i knew the house was fine. i was sweating the traffic. and wondered exactly how much of a difference leaving about an hour ahead of my usual, throwing in the s.l.o.r. (i.e. shit load of rain) factor, would truly make. i can sum it up in a phrase that non-austinites won’t get, but austinites won’t actually believe…i wouldn’t if i hadn’t seen it my self. it goes like this…

4:45 pm…monday, 7/1/2k2…raining….ben white blvd & i35…NO LINE!!!

i think this might be truly a sign of the apocalypse…for those in SA, this is the equivalent of being able to breeze through i10 and 410 in the heart of the construction over near where there USED to be a fredricksburg road exit at 5:15 pm….’cause ben white has been under construction at i35 since (no bullshit) 1990. and i went through it like i was driving down my own lockhart street. strange shit. i’ll now be looking for the rasta man with the stigmata so i know who to follow as my savior….or hit up for really good weed.

the lack of traffic (and the ben white miracle) made me re-think my rush home, and i hit gold’s gym on the far south side of town, where i FINALLY nailed 260 six times in a row on bench…for a day with such an unpleasantly early start, it wrapped up okay.