Originally posted by NickFitz
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Having sorted out the essentials, I glanced out of the window, only to find that the street outside had just earned itself a nomination in the "Best New River" category, and the raindrops gave the impression of not so much splashing as bouncing a foot back into the air as they arrived
However, the rain had the last laugh: it hasn't stopped since, and I got totally soaked on the walk back
Still, at least I'm not like those wusses at an adjacent table who waited for almost half-an-hour, with empty glasses, until they thought the rain had stopped before leaving; who then found, as they stood peering out of the door, that it hadn't stopped, it had just lightened up; who then returned to their table (and only one of them bought another drink) for another thirty minutes; and who finally had another look outside, debated anxiously amongst themselves ("Shall we just get wet?" "I don't know, we could just get wet I suppose." "We'll get wet if we do." "Shall we just get wet then?"), and finally decided to accept the Awful Inevitability Of The One Obvious Fact: they were going to get wet.
I felt like grabbing each one by the shoulders, shaking them, and shouting into their faces:
"You're English! It's raining! You'll get wet! Get used to it!"
Before anybody questions their hesitancy: they were in their early twenties with no obvious health problems; far from wearing expensive clothes that might suffer in the damp they were actually less well-dressed than myself (and that's hard to achieve); and there were no expensive hairdos involved (again, less kempt than me; again, hard to achieve).
I reckon they spent too much of their childhood believing their mothers when they (the mothers) said "Don't go out in that rain, you'll catch your death!" Of course, all intelligent children soon learn that the mother is talking rubbish in that case; these seem to have categorised such advice alongside useful cautions such as "Don't get into cars with strange men". Losers
The Gruadain
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