A Great Day for Bananafish. I mean, Starbucks. Fish.

Gosh, I love torrential rain! Right now it's amazing outside. I wish I could take the day off and frolic in the mile-wide puddles at intersections. Bathe with the fishes in the newly-birthed seas in indented sidewalks. Roll in the muddy grass patches that are still recovering from the last snow.

OK, now I'm exaggerating once again. (You might have noticed this trend in my blog?) It's simply not raining that hard. My rain experience was probably intensified by the decision to forgo an umbrella this morning and rough it with just the hood of my jacket protecting my head from extra moisture. While this worked, it certainly left me feeling like a drenched rat. Especially thanks to the ever-stylish fur business that fringes my hood.

But a valid issue here is that Boston's street and sidewalk drainage is inefficient; especially in the winter months. Years past, the problem was usually that snow and ice had blocked the drains, leaving the melty bits on top, or any rain that came, having nowhere to drain. The result: massive flooding issues. Not a good deal. Today I don't think that's so much of an issue as that, well, the drains in Boston just seem to be insufficient or clogged or something. Spring rains often result in the same floodage that makes pedestrians wonder how the heck they can possibly hop over six feet of deep water to cross the street. I digress.

I know what you're thinking, those of you who know how close I actually live to work. So I'll have to come clean and admit that my journey today was extended by my own selfish decision to stop at Starbucks on the way. After sufficiently drenching my small dog during his morning walk (even with a rain jacket (yes, dog rain jacket), he was one soaked little pup), I decided it would be great fun to make my once-weekly Starbucks run (I might be cheating this week) on the way to work. It's my own fault my time in the rain was multiplied by at least 2.4. Yay.

Anyway, here we get to the crux of this post. Walking through the rain, grande americano successfully acquired and sloshing nicely in (and out of) cup, my thoughts suddenly flashed to a myriad of scenes from movies where someone, usually the main actor, is in line at a Starbucks, waiting waiting waiting to order, then leaving with a coffee in each hand, quickly navigating past the other walkers on the sidewalks.

I don't have issue with that representation, although I do think that usually the Starbucks in the big cities in which these are often filmed have a better handle on early-morning rushes than lots of the smaller ones. The lines probably aren't that big of a deal, but what do I know? My part of Boston isn't that full of early-morning professionals. Usually there are a few, but the mix is just college students who come in at various times.

But what big city doesn't have rain? Boston, New York City, Chicago, Seattle: RAIN. If they really wanted to represent the downtrodden assistant-to-some-bigwig, they'd not only make them collect their coffee, but they'd make it rain! A lot!

I suppose they save rain for the moody, "we're reflecting on whatever just went bad in the last ten minutes that ruined whatever we had going awesomely for ourselves the 45 minutes prior" scene. Which is fine. But I think if they wanted to show just how bad getting coffee for their boss is, they'd add rain to the mix. Hey, not to mention, those drinks would spill a LOT more. Of course, that would probably require the cups to actually have liquid in them. Hmm.

I better go before I rant about how much, despite my great enjoyment of the show, the one thing that would always make me sad about Gilmore Girls was how they'd swing their cups around after they'd just gotten coffee from some place. Spillage! Your drinks are splashing and burning your hands! No? OK, no. I think I only think of these things because I'm so bad at keeping all of my own beverage in the cup. Maybe it's jealousy? Oops.

So anyway. Movies. Coffee. Rain. Let's combine those elements. I suppose that would make a truly drab opening sequence though. I don't know, I don't make movies. I just watch them.

Salutations on this rainy Wednesday. I hope you're a fish.

x Andrle x