Summer rain

I love summer rain. It provides such a refreshing respite from the heat and gives a regular ol' summer day a little something extra. These rainstorms come out of nowhere around here and only stay for a fleeting amount of time; although, they make the most of their limited time by dumping as much water as possible. The hour-by-hour weather report on these days looks something like this: sunny, sunny, sunny, sunny, sunny, mild hurricane, sunny, sunny, sunny, sunny, sunny. Seriously, it's crazy.

Just a couple weeks ago, we enjoyed our favorite rainstorm of the summer thus far. We were eating dinner with friends on a scorchingly-hot day, when I glanced out our dining room and saw this:

A fiery, vibrant sunset accented by water rushing down from the sky. It was so pretty! Naturally, we walked out onto our covered back porch to take this picture and watch the sunset. Our plans didn't last long, though. A mere 30 seconds after stepping outside, we spotted a family of black widows dutifully spinning their webs near the rear entrance of our home. Let me tell you, nothing creeps me out more than murderous arachnids. So we quickly swapped our fun frolic-in-the-rain plans for the safety of our couch and figured we'd try again during the next rainstorm.

To truly appreciate the next part of the story, you need a little background information regarding my parking habits. During winter, I park as close as humanly possible to my destination. If that means driving around in circles at Wal-mart for ten minutes until a front-ish spot becomes free, so be it. What can I say? I hate being cold. In every other season, though, I look at those "circlers" like they're crazy. I mean, what's an extra 25 steps in warm weather? In fact, I prefer those 25 steps, thank you very much, so I tend to park toward the back of the lot.

Which brings us to my Sam's Club trip yesterday. Just as the Weather Channel predicted, it was 105 degrees and the sun was blazing when I arrived at the crowded parking lot. Just to provide a visual, here's the lovely sunny, palm tree-lined view near Sam's Club that I originally shared in this post:

Anyway. Immediately after entering the lot, I turned down a center aisle and noticed an open 2nd-row spot just as I was passing by. There was no one behind me so I could have easily reversed a little and taken it. Instead, I decided that the extra exercise would be good for me and parked in the next open spot I found, which happened to be two rows from the back. I mentally patted myself on the back for making a good little fitness decision as I walked to the store entrance in the sweltering heat.

Fast forward about 45-minutes to me signing my name on the line for an expensive cart full of necessities. The cashier handed me the receipt and the lights suddenly flickered. There was a faint booming sound in the distance, and the lady behind me muttered, "thunder." That can't possibly be thunder, I thought as I walked to the exit. But boy, was I wrong. I made it to the doors only to find a torrential downpour outside.

Big drops of rain pelted me incessantly as I raced to my car with the cart. Then, since Sam's doesn't provide grocery bags, I stood there in the pouring rain as I painstakingly took items out of my cart one by one and placed them in the trunk. By the time all of the groceries were safely in my car, I was so drenched that one might think I'd been searching for Nemo.

I couldn't help but laugh at my plight. That, and thank my lucky stars that Sam's Club was the last errand on my list!