titles are for the british

most days, i love my job. i love being outdoors, being active, and having some quality time to myself. most days i realize how lucky i am to have the job that i do, and i relish every moment of every day

some days, however, are slightly harder to enjoy. days when it's 32.001 degrees outside, with a howling wind determined to thrash your entire body with ice-cold needles of rain. i don't mind being cold, and i don't particularly mind being wet, but being cold and wet is a combination that can send me over the edge into despair. fortunately, we have some heavy-duty rain gear available for us to use at the water district. i broke it out for the first time last week... not because it hadn't been cold or rainy before that point, but it was the first time they had teamed up on the same day so far this fall

the rain gear is designed with two purposes in mind: to make you invincible to the elements, and to make you visible to everyone. it is thick, heavy, completely non-porous (it's like the opposite of gore-tex: guaranteed to keep the weather out, but you just may drown in your own perspiration), and bright, rubber-ducky yellow. it makes you look like you're a giant, humanoid, walking/talking banana. i hadn't dared to wear it previously, knowing that being as readily inclined to perspiration as i usually am, there was a distinct possibility that i might actually sweat to death. so i was sort of looking forward to the appropriate time to use the rain gear, in a morbid sort of way...


that is, until i actually did get to use it



it kept me mostly dry, and i stayed warm. those are both good things. but the gear fit me so poorly that the pants didn't come down quite to the tops of my boots, which somehow made the already comical outfit even more rediculous looking. and the hood on the rain jacket wouldn't stay on my head, as it blew backwards everytime i faced into the wind (which was quite often)

plus, i looked like a giant banana.


the best (worst?) part was towards the end of the day... it had been raining buckets all morning long, but just about an hour before the end of my shift, it stopped. suddenly. and the sun came out. good news, right? not if you're a mile from the truck, and you're stuck wearing the banana suit the whole walk back

if you're wearing rain gear in the rain, you look ready. prepared. hardcore. but if you're wearing rain gear when the sun is out, you look...

weird.

crazy.

perhaps even slightly maniacal.


all i know is, i got some strange looks. i wanted to make a sign and paste it on my back: "it was raining when i put it on!"


there's probably a moral in that story somewhere, but for the life of me i'm not sure where. oh well.




and.... i was going to put a couple of pictures here, but it's taking way too long to upload them since the connection keeps flaking out. so just use your imagination. as for me, i'm going to take a nap.