Just Doing My Job

Life is full of adventures. Take Tuesday night for instance.

I'm working at the bookstore and I was totally caught up in what I was doing. When suddenly I am shaken out of my head by the sound of pounding rain. And when I describe it as pounding, I mean it was holy freakin' cow POUNDING! If it were cold enough to become hail, the hail balls would have been about the size of golf balls. I am SO not exaggerating here. I looked out the window and the street was almost completely flooded. It looked like a river carrying small branches in its current. I couldn't help but smile. Because how often does something like that happen? And, again I emphasize, the raindrops were HUGE!.

As my boss and coworkers looked out the window with me I verbalized my thoughts. "Doesn't it just make you want to go play in it. Jump around, get wet..." They all looked at me a little funny, my boss in particular. "Not that I would," I corrected, "because, you know, then I'd be all wet when I came back in here..."

As my boss turned to disappear up the stairs, we heard her curse. "S***! Not good!!!" We all turned in unison to see where she was looking. The door to the patio had 2 1/2 feet of water up against its glass, and the door was no longer working to keep the water out. It was coming in so fast and hard that it looked as though someone had turned on a foset, and left it to run all over the hardwood floors.

Allow me to remind you at this point, that we sell BOOKS. And books' nemisis= water.

It was like someone had snapped their fingers and made us into a fire bragade. A line of us ran to the back room with me leading the way. We grabbed towels and ran back to the door. For about three seconds I watched as everyone started mopping up the water with the towels and made sad attempts to stop the water from coming in. But it looked like the scene in Free Willy when the tank has a leak and there are only mere minutes before the glass just gives in. (Of course I am somewhat exaggerating here.) So it took me mere seconds before I decided to act.

I ran back and found a mop bucket, ran to the other back door, kicked off my shoes and dashed out into the wet. I just remember how hard those raindrops were falling and how they even hurt a little. I was using the bucket as an umbrella as I ran around to the patio. I couldn't believe how much water was sitting against the door. I wondered if it was even worth it to start bailing, seeing as it would take a really long time before it would take any sort of helping effect. But I dipped my bucket in anyway and got to work. Even though it was a crappy job, I couldn't help but laugh a little out loud as realized that three minutes earlier I had been talking about how much fun it would be to go out and get wet. Well... I certainly got wet.

About twenty-five buckets later I was starting to finally see a difference. At one point I remember looking through the glass door and seeing one of my coworkers smile at me. I'm sure it looked like I'd gone swimming with my clothes on. I laughed and gave her a thumbs up then kept going.

About thirty-five buckets into it I noticed that the lightning was actually very close, and was coming about every forty seconds or so. Remember... I was on the patio. So it was a little scary for a bit, but I just went until the water was below the door. It took about fifty-five buckets or so. When I went back in I looked at my boss and said, "Well I think I'll need to run home and change." She laughed a little. "I'll bring back more towels too." At this she shook her head and told me to just go home since it would be closing time when I got back anyway. She'd call her daughter and have her bring some towels over.

So there you go. When you're in need of getting out of work an hour early, try doing something semi-heroic. Preferably if it means sacrificing dry clothes. It's a win-win situation. Plus I had fun. A change of pace is always exciting.

But let me tell you... when I woke up the morning after, my back and shoulders KILLED! I've never had such bad knots. But it was all totally worth it.