Rain Cometh

It has started.
I got a feeling in my proverbial bones that the rain was coming as I was leaving the house. I happened to glimpse my pops’ big green poncho from the camping trips of my childhood last night and in the absence of a raincoat that fits, thought that this little retro number might just do the trick if the bone-rain-predictometer proved accurate. I bounded up the stairs, as I am wont to do, (even in work, where others trudge up stairs because they are paid by the hour, I bound up to and at times three steps a time. I was in a drunken tuxedo-clad stair-leaping contest in Cambridge with Diarmuid actually. I’d forgotten that until yesterday when I got the pictures from that weekend developed. But I digress.) I retrieved the poncho and went on my way – stuffing it into an already bulging squash-bag.

And then it started. It’ll rain now for about six months. In my head, if not in reality. Such is the life of a cyclist – ever sensitive to and discomforted by changes in weather and prone to exaggeration about it. As I went to produce this piece of camping appareil (itself tent-like), to keep my nice crumpled linen jacket from wetness, I realised why my bag had felt so heavy. Quasi-mojo was riding pillion. Sitting on my bag, hands clasped around my protruding squash-racket.

“It has started,” he said.
“Hmmm. Yes. I know. Poncho time?”
“This is neither the time – which is 1987 – nor the place – Mexico.”

Picture the scene.
It’s a combat green plastic poncho with a hood. Hood first. 10 year-old helmet on second. Quasi-Mojo is shrieking with laugher. Already, my poncho is billowing. I see it has buttons that one presumes clasp to something to make this item more manageable, but in the rain and the wind and the shrieking laughter, I just can’t figure it out. I take some of the poncho in each hand sit on another bit and trust that if the monkey isn’t tucked in, that he’ll find a dry spot somewhere. He’s resourceful like that. I couldn’t see a damn thing with the hood obstructing part of my view and the poncho hindering any sight of anything behind me. It was terrible terrible idea and a raincoat must be bought. As well as these practical matters, I looked like an idiot. And worse: a green idiot. A hooded, helmeted, green billowing idiot… on a flashy bike… that was invisible under the billowing idiocy of it all.

And I still got wet.