Rain Driven

The City of Santa Monica's official web site lauds the 340 days of sunshine a year which our fair burg enjoys. This lack of experience with precipitation certainly shows.

The morning following a night of steady but light rain the streets were shiny as I crossed Santa Monica Boulevard.

I stepped out onto the crosswalk and heard the sound of a big object being pushed across pavement. It was a BMW not screeching, but sliding towards me, its weight hunched over its front wheels. The driver wore the kind of expression found on a boy riding an out of control toboggan into a crowd of skiers.

The Beemer came to rest in the exact spot on the crosswalk which I had leapt from only a second earlier. The man dipped his head sheepishly at me as I glared, and gave me an "I'm sorry" wave.

Having dodged death I continued walking further down the street until a light drizzle began flitting down to wet the tops of my shoes. Up ahead, as I approached 5th Street, I heard another slide and the soft crunch of bumpers smacking together. A small car had skidded into the rear end of a pick up truck laden with gardener's equipment.

All around me it was as if the less than an inch of rain had driven motorists mad. They did things they would not normally do on dry days.

A perfectly reasonable looking woman, driving one of those new Toyota SUVs that look like Tonka trucks, dashed out in front of a Big Blue Bus trundling down the street. She seemed as startled by her own action as was the bus driver, who slammed on the brakes and horn simultaneously. The passengers standing in the bus swung on their straps like salamis in a deli window.

There were cars speeding past, or barely moving faster than a jogging pace, without windshield wipers on, or headlights.

One small car moved down the street as if the driver was blinded, and to an extent he was: his windows were so fogged over it was as if he had a block of dry ice sitting beside him on the front seat. He had his driver's side window down half way and peered through the impenetrable windshield as if searching for cracks in a wall.

Once on the Promenade, which was decked in Holiday cheer, I saw a young man who seemed as if he was attempting to traverse wet ice hosed down with olive oil.

His shoes, black suede Oxfords with some kind of spongy sole, which could find no purchase on the famous shopping lane. He could barely keep his feet under him without clawing at his girlfriend who seemed embarrassed and apologetic to passersby, as if she were propping up a drunk.

Shoppers were huddled under umbrellas together as if the drizzle would melt their flesh.

One man was dressed in a full head-to-toe Gorton's fisherman yellow rain suit.

A woman pushed a stroller so covered with plastic tarps that I feared for the baby's breathing.

Even the streets are ill equipped for this tiny bit of rain. Back out on Santa Monica Boulevard the gutters had become small rivers. Passing cars sent muddy waves across the sidewalks.

Nearly every year there is a major down pour and local news stations will run footage of some poor fellow who tried to make it through a flooded intersection. He will stand on the roof of his half submerged car waiting to be plucked off of it by a rescue chopper.

He's probably a Santa Monican.