We received one curtain of rain after another these past few days. Weather reports advised us to stay home due to possible flash flooding. My neighborhood became pleasantly silent as I began organizing my goal for the day. Surrounded by stacks of material, I busied myself with research for my current project.
After lunch I heard the annoying sound of a huge truck squeal its brakes and a metal door clang open. I looked out the window to see the truck stopped in front of my house and a man unloading several large cartons. A delivery scheduled for Friday arrived early. I accepted the boxes, then cleaned up storm debris around my front entrance. Neighborhood tranquility was further shattered when my ears caught the loud bark of a dog. But this was no ordinary dog; this was the little dog with a big voice I enjoyed seeing. She sensed I was outdoors, pulling her handlers up the street in her excitement to see me.
My loquacious neighbor, Louise, and her reticent daughter, Rita, who was visiting through the following week, were taking fluffy Bella for a walk between downpours. They hurried up the sidewalk onto my porch to visit while Bella received her customary lavish affection from me. Louise prattled from one subject to another, filling my ears with chit-chat. Rita announced she wanted to take Bella for her walk before menacing, impending showers arrived. When they returned, Louise continued her breathless tittle-tattle. Rita, listening to her mother’s incessant chatter, looked uncomfortable, dancing from foot to foot. When water droplets freckled the pavement, Rita said she would walk Bella home, out of the damp, chilly weather. A few minutes later, Louise received a call on her cellphone from Rita who said she didn’t have her house key and couldn’t open the garage door using the electronic keypad.
I grabbed an umbrella and rushed with Louise to her house in drizzling rain to assess the problem. We decided the earlier rainstorms must have rendered the keypad inoperable. Then I discovered neither of them had their house key, and Louise’s husband, Jack, was not home and not responding on his cellphone. You can imagine the circus of three women and a dog dodging raindrops while trying, but not succeeding, to break into their house. I thought maybe Jack had a key hidden somewhere, and the scramble continued, looking in and under everything in the now pouring rain. Joyful, white-haired Bella looked like a sad, wet rag mop. We found two rusty keys buried in the sand under a huge flower pot, just before Rita wet her pants. As we turned the key in the lock, daffy Jack, who forgot to turn on his cellphone, remotely opened the garage door after returning from a quick trip to a nearby convenience store.
Later, while dashing up the street toward home before an incoming cloudburst, another neighbor opened her door and shouted, “Nancy, come in for a visit, a hot cup of tea, and homemade chocolate chip cookies!” How could I resist? After an hour-long visit, awaiting a break in the weather and listening to more village gossip, I ventured outdoors. Holding my umbrella, I splashed through polka dot puddles on my way home, wondering what else my rainy day would plop in my path before the clouds cleared and my daily routine returned to normal. Okay, who was I kidding? My days, rainy or not, are anything but normal, thanks to my amusing, generous, albeit somewhat quidnunc neighbors.
