Driving in the rain...

Being from the Seattle area, I'm used to rain. 364 day a year rain. I drive in it often and usually don't think to much of it. Like people who live in the mountains get used to driving in snow, us Seattle folks are quite used to driving in the rain. We don't have the experience of forgetting how to drive in the rain like thse California people do. Instead, we freak out at the sight of a single snowflake.


I do, however, hate driving in the driving, sideways rains which come down in sheets. The rain that blinds you completely in the instant the windshield wipers move out of the way. The rain that floods the roadways and hammers your vehicle, always accompanied by the wind, which shakes and vibrates your car as you, half blind, struggle to stay in your lane. The rain that makes you fear having to change lanes because you're afraid to look any direction but straight ahead. And don't forget the huge blasts of water, kicked up by cars in the oncoming lanes, which take two or more swipes of the windshield wipers to clear leaving you hoping against all hope that you're not about to drive right off the road, because, dammit, you can't see anything.


More than anything, I'm bothered by the sound this horrible rain makes. Every time we get a good rainstorm like the one I described above, I'm forced to turn up my radio as loud as I can take, in the hopes of drowning out that horrible sound. I once drove home from Portland, Oregon in one such rainstorm. I actually got so bothered by the noise that I put in a pair of earplugs and then turned up the stereo all the way.


I don't know what it is about the sound of heavy rain from the driver's seat of a car, but it makes me fell like I'm drowning... or in a submarine... or something equally unpleasant. It's a claustrophobic anxiety-inducing feeling.


I'm beginning to miss that long stretch of cold but dry days we had going for a while. Looks like wind and rain until July...