This Town Has Made Me A Wuss It wasn't until I was in my mid-twenties that I purchased my first umbrella, and while I had a smattering of coats I scarcely wore them. I'm from the pacific Northwest you see, a land of freewheeling hippies, sixteen year old meth cooks, and rain. Lots and lots of rain. For most raised in the northwest however, rain is practically meaningless. Part of it is because the only thing most people know about our region of the country is that it's always raining. Sure, you'll get a bit of the whole "Oregon Trail" thing in grade school but generally just elicits, "There are people up there?", more than anything else. The only thing we ever really got noticed for was grunge, which I'm personally quite embarrassed about. These generations of ignominy have created a sort of us against the world kind of mentality that tends to manifest itself in things like showing everybody how much better we are than the rest of the world by not being bothered by rain. The other part is much more pragmatic. If one was to spend their time avoiding rain they would quickly find themselves a complete and total shut-in. I never even paid that much attention to the rain, until I moved to the bay area. Where, for some strange reason, it really doesn't rain that much at all. At first I was genuinely confused. How does it not rain somewhere that isn't a desert? Is this damn city broken? If it never rains does this mean I'll never see snow? That's just fucked up. Then it began to rain. And I was horrified. I suddenly found I had no tolerance for any form of falling moisture. It irritated me to no end and made me want to do things like stay home with a movie and a pizza delivered fresh to my door because, you know, what kind of madman would go out in the rain. It only got worse from there. I found myself saying things like, "I don't want to go to the corner store for smokes, it's pouring!", or "I know the house is on fire, but have looked outside!". Of course, I never let anybody know my weakness. When the rain comes and my friends begin to complain I begin posturing with the best of them. Harrowing tales of the near biblical torrents that would afflict my town. The sky splitting open as rivers swelled and sandbags were packed tightly with sand. I'm not the wuss. No sir, not me. I'm all man and impervious to a little water. So, uh, you mind if I borrow your umbrella?
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