Trying to get it right

This time I will get it right, I thought to myself.  I left early, I studied maps, and I got on all the right buses and trains.  Everything seemed like it was going to work out just fine.  This was my second visit to the school in Staten Island that I would be supporting and I did not want things to end up like last time.

My journeys in NYC have gone steadily uphill.  I still walk out of the subway station and usually go back and forth a few times (why do they have to say — ‘head southwest on 2nd place’?  Do they think I carry a compass around with me?!) before I am headed in the right direction.  And I still leave early just in case I get on the wrong train headed in the wrong direction (which happened to me yesterday).  And I still send myself the directions, just in case I need them (which is still every time).  There is nothing intuitive about it.  And I have a pretty good sense of direction.

But I figure if I can handle these streets, then I should be able to figure NYC out….

streets of HCMC

But yesterday, disaster struck again.  It is kind of like lightening, surely since I have been hit once, I won’t get hit again?  But somehow I seem to be a magnet.

While on the bus, I noticed that it was getting darker and darker out.  I checked my smarter-than-a-flip-phone phone and it said that there was only a 30% chance of rain.  Which is good, because I don’t have an umbrella (remember last trip to Staten Island?  When I left the umbrella in the cab?  yeah, it’s still there.  and I’m still without an umbrella – which seemed to be an inconsequential fact.  Until it wasn’t….)

At this point, I know my stop is coming up and I start bargaining with the gods — ‘come on.  come on!  just let it hold on a little bit.  Let me get to the door!!!!”  But, as soon as I stepped off the bus, the rain started coming down.  At first, it was a normal rain.  I dashed across the road, ran up the drive way, trying to get cover by the trees.  Then, the skied opened up a little bit more and I ran under an alcove and took stock of my situation.

Yep — I was pretty much soaked.  I had 5 minutes to get there — and about 3 minutes of a run to get to the door.  ‘shit.  shit.  now what?!’ I thought to myself.  I couldn’t be late a second time.  This principal is going to think I am a flake.  Or a drowned rat – albeit a cute one, but still….

And then, hard to believe, but it started to rain harder.  Like sideways rain.  with a wind.  At that moment, I had no option — I was getting wet anyway.  I had to make a run for it.  So – run I did.  But it didn’t make any bit of a difference.

When I entered the lobby of the school, the school secretary handed me a towel and directed me to the bathroom.  Yep — I was the model of professionalism at that moment.

I spent the next two hours sitting in a meeting, trying to regain composure and decorum.  Hard to do when you are dripping on the floor….

the last time i was stuck in such rain. but better prepared.