Things can only get wetter

[j4]

I got soaked at lunchtime, halfway down High Street on a bike when the skies opened; my trousers got so wet that they looked (ironically) like waterproofs, slick as plastic. I stopped off in the magic charity shop (Sobell House on Little Clarendon Street: not much stock, smells of wee a bit, but has some ace bargain clothes) on the way back to work to buy some cheap dry clothes so I wouldn't spend the afternoon soggy and shivering, and actually spent long enough trying on other cheap dry clothes that my trousers were more or less dry by the time I got back to the office, though it had started raining again as I was wheeling my bike into its stand. Remembered to buy forks, forgot to buy the cat-shaped earrings. You win some, you lose some.

I'm fed up of getting wet every time I leave work, though: yesterday I ran round the corner to the newsagent around 10am to buy breakfast, and got drenched on the way back. Barely five minutes outside, I mean, what are the chances? Mind you, I also bumped into one of my former English tutors, and what are the chances of that, too? I didn't actually bump into her, of course, which was just as well as she was quite bump-heavy. Baby due today, apparently.

Anyway, so I'm on my way home after work & Oxfam, cycling in the not-rain for the first time today, thinking "well it may be tupping freezing but at least I'm not actually wet, and the sky's clear-ish, quite pretty actually, hello sky, hello clouds" and I'm about 200 yards from home when some knobheaded knob-end from Knob End (or perhaps Dean Court) throws a water-bomb at me from his car window. KNOBHEAD. Okay, that's not quite what I shouted, but close enough for a family journal. And frankly it would have taken too long to say "I've just come home from 11 hours at work, I'm cold and tired and now my trousers are soggy for the second time today, please turn your knobmobile round and drive right back here so I can stab you in the face with a fork." I mean, put like that, it's not much of an incentive, is it.

On the plus side, I now have an enormous bowl of pasta with tuna, courgette (home-grown from a friend's allotment), capers and olives, and I'm not (usually) a knobheaded knob-end. Could be worse, I guess.

Comments

[brrm.livejournal.com]

Bastards. *hugs*

[taimatsu]

Sounds like good pasta :)

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

I'm laughing! But also sympathetic. I was wearing the shirt that looks really rude when it gets unexpectedly soaked yesterday. Ooops.

[barnacle.livejournal.com]

You can always stab the courgette with a fork and imagine it's a knob-end. If that, um, helps.

[imc.livejournal.com]

That does not sound pleasant. Who on earth carries water bombs around in their car anyway? (Yes I know: knobheads do.) The worst I've had thrown at me recently is a squib.

Eek! I said I'd email you and it's Friday already. I lose at the Internets.

[lnr]

I had a doughnut thrown at me once. Hit me on the (bare) shoulder and made me all sticky and sugary. Terrible waste of a doughnut.

Hope you're all dry now Janet!

[j4.livejournal.com]

See, a doughnut, while sillier, is something I can at least imagine having in the car with me already, and I can sort of imagine then suddenly being struck by the idea that throwing it out of the window would be very funny (at least, say, funnier than it would have been six pints ago). Though yes, terrible waste. If only you could've swiftly turned and caught it between your teeth with one deadly CHOMP! Or perhaps caught it on your handlebar, if it was a ring doughnut. I wonder how many doughnuts you could fit along your handlebars?

(Yes, I'm dry now, ta. :)

[j4.livejournal.com]

squib

Ow! That sounds much worse.

I lose at the Internets.

No more than I do. :-/ Joint last place in the Internets, maybe? *hug*

[imc.livejournal.com]

Well it wasn't thrown directly at me, just very close on the road (and the cyclist in front of me got one too). Have I got the right word? I'm talking about very small things that make a loud crack when they hit a hard surface. Made me jump a bit but didn't cause any actual harm.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Get the license plate?

[j4.livejournal.com]

No. :-( Thought process went roughly "Ow! WTF? Brrrr, eurgh..." and by the time I'd worked it out & got to the "KNOBHEAD!" bit they were quite a way away.

[crouchinglynx.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of two recent events. One was getting ambushed by three little shits with snowballs - there wasn't even any snow left on the road, they were just waiting by a small mound of it that hadn't thawed yet. And my only options were to ignore it and walk on with the snow dribbling down my back, or go nuts like in that Peep Show episode.
And the second was walking back from a gig, when a car drove past and someone threw an egg at us (a group of four makes an easier target). The problem is that by the time you've gone through the stages of "what the hell just happened there" and being incredibly pissed off, they've driven off and you've missed their license plate.
What's the world coming to, eh?

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Can you find waterproof pants to wear over your work trousers? The Gore-Tex ones are expensive, and they're really amazingly waterproof without being too uncomfortable if you're sweating under them. But they also make some that are just mostly waterproof, of coated nylon, and those are ok if you're not planning to be out in the rain for long intervals. Mine are loose, so I can wear layers under them in winter, like improv snowpants. This time of year, they still *sound* like snowpants (rustle, rustle, rustle) but they have no insulation built in.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I've got waterproof over-trousers, but I generally decide they're not worth the faff unless it's absolutely bucketing down when I set out. Certainly not worth putting them on just on the offchance that I'll get caught in a flash shower while cycling across town.