The Rain in Spain stays mainly all over my room...

I was going to use today's blog to wax poetic about my love for the new Mac commercials. During Thursday night Must See TV, I found myself looking forward to the Mac commercials more than the shows (except for The Office: aw, Pam and Jim...you're in trouble now!). I think it is a brilliant ad campaign, and every time one of the commericals comes on, I want to dump my Dell laptop into the nearest ditch, rush to the store, buy a Mac, and date it.

But this blog will no longer be about my love for the scruffily beautiful Mac guy.

Instead, I must relate the horrors of my night. A night that began in rain and ended in pain.

Yesterday afternoon, as I don't need to remind you Maryland residents, it started to pour. This reprehensible weather behavior continued through the night and well past midnight. After eight, I was safe and dry in my house, watching television and eating- what else?- Indian takeout. I didn't head down to my room until about eleven. My basement room.

I'd been worried all night about tornadoes. There was a little tornado watch sign on the bottom right corner of the screen. I'd called my Mom so she could assure me I wasn't going to die and then calmly continued watching television. I did freak out a bit when the cable when out for ten minutes...I've watched a lot of Twister, and I know that the television going out is a bad sign.

I wish it had been a twister.

Instead, the trouble was in the basement. I noticed it smelled kind of funny. Then I noticed the carpet was a little damp. Then I noticed parts of the carpet were soaked. Then I noticed the puddles of water pooling all over my belongings.

My landlord/roommate assured me there was nothing to be done that night. So he went upstairs and went to bed. And I took every towel I could find (many of them his, which gave me some sort of sick satisfaction) and began mopping up the mess. Then I moved as many of my belongings as possible to higher ground (stairs, first floor) or to the dry side of the room. Then I climbed into the island that is my bed and went to sleep.

I set my alarm for two so I could wake up and check on the flooding. Luckily, the rain had stopped by then.

Still, this morning things are squishy and damp and I worry about mildew and I'm running on very little sleep. This evening, instead of going out, I will be manipulating air circulation with a fan borrowed from my mother and worrying more about mildew.

I understand that this is nonexistent on the scale of natural disasters, but Why Can't Mother Nature Leave Me Alone?

I'm tired.

Unrelated Question of the Day: Am I a poor excuse for a human being because I want to see Lindsay Lohan's Just My Luck?

You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two...

This morning marked my first big snow in a neighborhood. Work opened two hours late (excellent news for my cold, which just wants to drink hot things and sleep). I was pulling my boots on, ready to tramp out into the snow and shovel out my car when the doorbell rang.

This is unusual in my house. My roommates and I are not particularly social people. We'll venture out to find society, but we rarely invite it in. Certainly not at 8:40 in the morning.

On my steps was a boy with a shovel and a tantalizing offer: he would shovel off my front walk and porch for $10 and the back for $5.

I don't care about the back. I only walk out the back door to take the garbage out, and I try to take the garbage out as infrequently as possible- it's a man's job. I considered asking the boy in to take my garbage out, but he was covered with snow, so I decided against it.

I said, "How about cars? Do you do cars?"

He said he would shovel out my car and scrape it for $3.

This is probably the best deal I have ever been offered in my life. I told him to wait right there and I would get the money and get him the scraper from inside my car.

In my wallet, I had $10 and a fifty. I didn't really think this kid had the capacity to make change, so I gave him $10 to do my car and then whatever else he figured was worth $10. I got my scraper for him, and I went downstairs to take a shower.

Though a country bumpkin, I am not quite as trusting as all that. My shower was full of hot water and visions that this kid would take my $10 and run, leaving me to- god forbid!- shovel out my own car. With wet hair. That would freeze to my head. Or that he would steal my ice scraper- I have one fabulous ice scraper- and use it to write in the snow on my front lawn: "YOU'RE AN IDIOT!".

Luckily, when I headed upstairs, fully dressed, my car was shoveled and scraped and my wonderful ice scraper was leaning on the porch. This kid was my new hero. My work day just got that much easier.

In my car, I was thinking what an enterprising young man he was. His classmates were sleeping late or playing in the snow or somehow enjoying their day off, and he was running a profitable business. Then I noticed how clear the roads were. Strange that school should be closed. Maybe school wasn't closed. Maybe my neighborhood had a Fagin type character that coerced young boys into skipping school to shovel snow and bring the profits to him! Eek.

When I got to work, I called my Mom. She said schools are closed today. Excellent. I love living in a neighborhood.

Tips for Survival...

I think in situations where you rent, you are supposed to be able to call your landlord when something goes horribly wrong. That dynamic changes slightly when your roommate is your landlord. And surly. And never home at the same time as you.

Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands.

This is how I found myself on my hands and knees this morning, blow-drying the laundry room rug.

At some point on Wednesday night, while I was out trying not to get intoxicated off of hurricanes, our washer blew up, soaking the rug and filling the wastebasket with water. Odd. I was too drunk to notice Wednesday night. I was too late for work Thursday morning and too tired Thursday night. So I dragged myself out of bed (kind of) early this morning to tackle the problem.

My mother assured me that all I needed was moving air: a fan or perhaps a space heater. Twenty-somethings living en masse do not own these things. We're just moving on to the comforts of extra towels and perhaps a spare pair of sheets.

But, in case something similar ever happens to you, a hair dryer works very well. Also: cats do not like hair dryers. Ferrets do.

Currently, I am eating a sandwich with mayonnaise on it, which I almost never do. Mayonnaise is kind of like oxygen- it doesn't taste like anything, but it makes everything it touches so much better.

Okay, mayonnaise is not really like oxygen at all. No one will die without it and some of us may die earlier because of it. But what a way to go. Mmm...mayonnaise...