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Sunday, 28th April 2002 - 4:08pm

You (Down)Pour Thing

What is it about rain that terrifies people so much? Why is it that if you ever happen to get caught in the rain, people act as if you've just stumbled out of a train wreck?

"Oh, you're soaking wet! You mean you were out in that deluge? You walked here? Oh, honey, are you alright?"

Well, providing the rain is neither acid nor carcinogenic, I may pull through.

So yeah, I got wet today. I was walking to work. B105's Big M Big Weekend, in Bandstand Park, Wynnum. I caught the train out, with the intention of walking for the short 10 minutes it would take to get from the station to the park.

That was, of course, until I suddenly came over all Leonard Shelby, and couldn't remember what train station to get off at. I took a guess, and jumped off at Manly, and started the walk in what I guessed to be the right direction.

By this point it was, as we Australians with all our eloquent terminology like to say, pissing down; and the crisp wind that malevolently writhed around my sodden clothes and numbing fingers made me so cold I had to make sure my hands stayed clear of my nether-regions for fear something would snap off.

After walking for fifteen minutes without finding Bandstand Park, I began to get a sneaking suspicion that I was walking in the wrong direction. This suspision was confirmed mid-sneak when I saw the change-of-suburb street sign which notified me I was about to enter "Lota".

I immediately spun 180 degrees, and headed even more purposefully in the opposite direction. With the first step I ended up in an ankle-deep puddle - a puddle I had taken great care to avoid when I was headed for Lota. It made no difference as I was already wet, and luckily being wet is like being pregnant: Once you are, you can't get more so. I couldn't get any wetter. (Just for the record, I'm not pregnant, so while I couldn't get wetter I could've gotten pregnanter, but fortunately the situation didn't arise.)

Twenty minutes and two suburbs later (and, I stand corrected, a whole lot wetter) I had finally found Bandstand Park, and the rest of the B105 team, bustling about tents and stages and trailers and the rest of the get-up it takes to bring a Big M Big Weekend to fruition. One of the girls saw me, and upon noticing how wet I was (I put drowned rats to shame), promptly asked "Wow. Did you walk here?"

"No," I replied, indicating the waterfront on which the park was located. "I swam." She laughed reservedly, and glanced at my wet clothes, as if she wasn't quite prepared to dismiss the comment as glibness.

It was then I noticed a tent being dismantled. "We've been rained out," sighed the girl with rain-drenched contempt, "we had started to set up, but now we're packing up again."

So we packed up all our bits and pieces and left - except this time rather than walking, I was driven back to the station in air-conditioned comfort. I mention air-conditioned comfort because I've discovered it is in no way comfortable when you're wet.

And now, here I am three hours later, and I'm dry. All except for my shoes, socks, and (by now extremely prune-esque) feet.

And guess what? The rain wasn't acid, or carcinogenic, so I'm probably going to live to see tomorrow.

If I do, the first thing I'm doing is buying an umbrella.

:+:+:+:+:

PS: Everybody say hello to Buggy, an incredibly cool and talented person who shamelessly requested that he be mentioned on this site. Of course, being a shameless Attention Slut™ myself, I'm more than happy to oblige. YAY BUGGY!!

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