It’s rained every day for the last week. Over the weekend, we bought fenders for my bike because riding in the rain without fenders meant water flying off my front tire directly into my eyes. On a couple of occasions, I rode my bike with my eyes closed and a plume of water pouring into my already limpid pools, if you can picture THAT circus act. Pete installed the fenders and we rode to the library this morning. The road was wet, the sidewalks were wet and puddles pooled everywhere. The air smelled fresh and dewy. I zipped down the hill on the tiny town’s main street toward the bridge, where civil engineering has plainly gone to die. I flew to the edge of the bridge, wove carefully around the puddles and slowed down almost to a stop where I couldn’t avoid a puddle. It was at this exact moment that a car on the bridge rolled so fast through a puddle that standing road water splashed my face.

I laughed so hard I almost fell off my bike.