When it rains, it pours. At least on Thursdays.

Last Thursday, it rained.  No, not rained...it poured.  But it was okay at first because I was prepared.  For the duration of the twenty-minute morning downpour, I had put on rubber shoe coverings, a raincoat and a baseball cap.  I ran from porch to porch when the rain died briefly so that I felt like I was still working.  At the end of it, I was drenched from my waist to my ankles, but nothing I couldn't live with.  

Fast-forward to early afternoon.  I'd just finished eating lunch and I was sitting in my truck and shivering.  I was cold (in August!).  The sun came out and I drew in a deep breath and decided right then and there that the afternoon was going to be much better than the morning.  After stripping myself of my rain gear (because the sun was now out, remember?) I hopped out of my truck, grabbed my load of mail and took off, determined to walk fast enough to warm up.  And I did just that.  When I was as far away from my mail truck as possible and my attitude was really taking a turn for the best, I saw three large raindrops fall onto the pavement in front of me.  And in the very next second, it was pouring again and the wind was blowing.  

I ran to the nearest house but there was no covered porch.  In fact, there were no covered porches on the entire block.  There was, however, a small overhang above the front door and I quickly learned that if I butted myself up against the door, very little rain was reaching me.  For the next minute, I watched the streets begin to flood and rain started hitting me sideways from the wind.  Just as I was feeling thankful that there were no cars in the driveway, a loud knock startled me from behind.  I turned around to see a man holding both hands to his chest and mouthing, "You. Scared. Me!"  He cracked the door open and I apologized profusely and handed him his mail.  I asked if it would be okay if I just stayed there until the rain died down and he said that would be fine.  He wished me good luck and shut the door.  Thirty seconds later, another knock.  I turned around and he cracked the door open, this time to say, "Just checked the radar and looks like this should pass quickly.  Hang in there!"  He gave me a thumbs-up before shutting the door again.  This is when I looked across the street and noticed a man standing in his open garage and staring at me.  He had both hands on his hips and when he noticed me noticing him, he slowly extended his left arm to press the button which shut the garage door.  He replaced his left hand onto his hip and watched me as the door shut right in front of him.  So there I stood, windy rain whipping me in the face and I was laughing hysterically at just how strange the world is (or mostly, the people), and I decided it screw it and I just went walking in the rain. And that was that.  It took two full days before my shoes dried completely.

And yesterday:  In the neighborhood where everybody calls me sweetie and hon, I was happily eating the heads off of my gummy bears on my lunch break, not a worry in the world, when I scanned the neighborhood.  This has become habit.  I do it everywhere.  We were trained to "look ahead".  We look for unleashed dogs, construction work being done; pretty much anything that might slow us down or get in our way.  So I do this everywhere now.  Even on my lunch break.  And in this lunchtime scan, I noticed a woman sitting on her front porch, just staring at me.  Except not staring, glaring.  I had no idea why.  I looked behind me, thinking maybe she was just looking at something else and I was mistaken, but all I could see was an empty street and a lonely tree.  I moved my head back and forth and her eyes were following me.  And that look, it was terrible.  I'm not foolish enough to drive into a neighborhood, park my truck and eat lunch before delivering the mail.  That would just be selfish.  So she already had her mail and I even remembered exactly what I delivered: no bills and nothing with a name that wasn't familiar.  I knew it was right.  So why was she staring at me like this?  And then I decided that I knew how to fix this problem.  I buckled my seat belt, started my truck and drove exactly one block north and re-parked to finish my lunch.  I was fine knowing she could glare at the back of my truck, but please don't watch me eat my gummy bears.  That's just getting too personal.