Say Wind

One of my nonGospel rules of life: Don't pay too much attention to the weatherman. Or weather websites. Or the weather app on your iPod. Or a weathervane. Or a psychic. Or anything else that tries to tell you what the weather of the future is going to be like.

Because guess what? It's probably going to be wrong.

So the other day, we were supposed to have an intense windstorm where I live. Mom ran around the house, unplugging things to avoid electric surges if the power went out. She handed out emergency flashlights and advised me to set my phone alarm for the next morning instead of relying on my obnoxious, electricity-using clock. I took her advice, but skeptically, oh so skeptically, because I knew just how tricky these weather types can be.

And sure enough, when the next morning came, was there an intense windstorm raging throughout the town?

Nope. Just a moderate wind, a light snowfall, and a bit of a chill in the air.

I didn't say "I told you so," but that was more because everybody else was asleep than because I'm a nice person. I guess, however, that if I really wasn't a nice person, I would have woken them up for the express purpose of I-told-you-soing. So I suppose the jury's still out on that one.

I got ready for school, grabbed my puffy winter coat, and headed out for Nameless Utah College.

However. As soon as I pulled out of the driveway, the expected intense wind started up. Clouds of snow swirled in the air and brushed the sides of my vehicle.

Well, I thought this is annoying. And it was annoying. It was so annoying that I started to feel, well, annoyed.

BUT. It got WORSE. At the bus stop, the wind was blowing from the north. Guess what? My bus comes from the north. So instead of peering into the distance to look for the bus, I had to turn my back on the expected bus or else my face probably would have been blown off in the wind. And while that would have been pretty uncomfortable, standing backwards in the wind was not much funner. 'Cause I still got wind on me, just... on my back. Also I had to worry about whether or not a tree or a small house might blow into my car, which was parked across the street.

Finally, the bus came and took me away to College City, where I was in for a big shock.

See, one of my other nonGospel rules of life is this: Whatever the weather is where I live, in College City it's always going to be about ten times worse. If it's snowing at my house, it's snowing ten times harder by the college. If it's a little warm by my house, it's a veritable oven at the college. And so on and so forth.

I got to College City expecting ten times as much wind and snow. Instead I got there to find, like, six and a half times less. It was utterly bruising to my ego, because my ego thinks it and I have the best rules of life ever.

"Don't worry," I said to my ego. "We're probably still right. The wind must have died down back home too, that's all."

With that happy thought, I went through the rest of my day. When I got on the bus to get home, the wind was very mild, so I of course expected to find it at least fairly mild when I got off the bus.

Well, it wasn't. In fact, that wind was freakishly strong.

To get to my car, I had to walk into the wind. Which meant that I was going at the approximate pace of a crippled turtle. Which just wouldn't do, because I had things to do and places to be and no time to make like a handicapped reptile. So I started running into the wind.

Imagine, if you will, a turquoise marshmallow that actually is a human in a puffy turquoise coat. Now imagine that marshmallow human running into a very strong wind, pumping its arms with all its might like a thing possessed. Now also imagine that this marshmallow only gets twenty minutes of exercise a day and because of that is somewhat out of shape and because of that is huffing and puffing like a chain smoker using an inhaler.

That's basically what I looked like.

Finally I made it to my car, completely out of breath but very pleased with myself. I unlocked my car and climbed in. Then I happened to notice a kid sitting in the next car. He was watching me, and, I highly suspected, had been since I started running. If he could say something to me in that moment, I figured he would say, "You're a loser."

And then I would say, "Au contraire, mon ami." And then I would hope that he didn't speak legit French. Because if he did he might say something in French back to me. And the only other thing in French I could thing of was "Mon petit chou." Which I'm pretty sure means, "My little cabbage." Which really doesn't add much to a conversation.

Then I drove home. On the way home I realized that the steering wheel was shaking. And I was like, "Why is the steering wheel shaking?" Then I thought that the brake was making a weird noise. And that the entire car was trembling.

First I thought my car was broken. Then I realized that it wasn't broken. The shaking and the weird noises came from the buffeting of the wind. It was so strong it was rattling my poor car right to the bones!

That was pretty disconcerting, but the last straw was when I got home. When I got home, the mailbox was wide open.

Now, this sent me into a bit of a panic. I love to get mail. Because I am a college student with friends who are all either a) married, b) living in a different city, c) just as busy and unavailable as I am, or d) all of the above, my soul often feels lonely. Getting mail makes my soul less lonely. Letters are the best, particularly from Best Friend Boy or other missionary friends, but I also enjoy getting newsletters, thank-you cards for wedding gifts, and even bills. Well, no. Not bills. My soul isn't quite that lonely.

The thought of not getting my mail was more than I could bear, so I dashed up and down the curb of my yard and the neighbor's, still looking like a turquoise marshmallow, still panting ridiculously, and pinwheeling my arms in a most spastic manner.

I was thinking that the wind had blown open the mailbox and stolen my mail, but I didn't find a single piece of correspondence lying about. Finally, I was forced to conclude that either the wind had blown my mail into lands unreachable and unknown, or that we simply hadn't gotten any mail that day at all.

I don't know which of those scenarios would be worse.

Anyways, this experience taught me three important things:

1) From now on, I should listen more to the weatherman and his ilk. This will save me a world of confusion and possibly some ego-bruising.

2) To avoid the trauma of not getting mail, I should write a postcard and send it to myself every single day. It will be like Fraggle Rock. Except without Fraggles. And without the rock. Unless I can find a postcard that has Fraggles on it. Or a rock.

3) I should invent an ingenious new system for the door of the mailbox, in order to avoid its being blown open and the mail possible being scattered to lands unreachable and unknown.

I'm thinking something with magnets.