rob mckenna, rain god

the ugly gray truck passed by an empty highway at a speed that would make even the best of froggers think twice before crossing the street.

the driver of the truck grumbled and cussed because it was again raining number 17. he hated all two-hundred-thirty-one types of rain that he had logged in his now-falling-apart book, but number 17 is the worst of all. based on his past experience, when number 17 is pouring down, it didn't really make much of a difference whether he had his windshield wipers on or off. further experience, however, proved that the visibility did get much worse when he turned them off and failed to get better even slightly when he turned them back on again. in fact, the one time he tested it out, one of the wiper blades began to flap off for a couple of seconds before it finally decided that it had had enough with all this rain shit that had been going on all throughout its life, packed its bags, and suicidally jumped off the windshield, leaving ugly scratchmarks on the already-ugly gray truck.

rob mckenna was on the driver's seat, contemplating whether or not he should repeat this experiment. he finally had the wiper blade replaced when he, living up to his reputation as a miserable bastard, decided to pick up a male hitchhiker and drop him off fifty-seven miles opposite from where he intended to get dropped off, only to realize almost immediately that the male hitchhiker had left his cash-filled wallet in the passenger's seat. so he did what every miserable bastard would: he took the money, backed up his truck to where the hitchhiker was standing with a face of utter confusion, tossed the empty wallet out of the passenger seat window, then drove away at high speed, hitting a large puddle in the process, making the hitchhiker not only wet, but also dirty. he had used a small fraction of the money to get a replacement blade, but spent most of it on alcohol. at this very moment, he was as broke as ever.

he was still contemplating this when a realization came to him that he is not only a miserable bastard, but also a lazy one. so living up to his second reputation, he stopped thinking and promptly decided to repeat the experiment. he turned off the windshield wiper briefly.

it is a well-known fact that history always repeats itself, but the consequences of this is always taken lightly. historians all over the world have tried their best to teach history as well as they can to the public to make them aware of the stupid things that their ancestors have done in the past, with direct hopes that the public won't repeat the stupidity. the intention is a good one, but the results aren't. the problem with this lies in the fact that the message that the historians have been trying to pass on to the public is often convoluted with many legal, political, and publishing issues, such that they come up with various textbooks that talk about the same pointless things in different ways, while the message can actually be passed on simply by sending a letter to the inhabitants of the planet earth using a large, friendly letterhead that says "DON'T DO ANYTHING STUPID. LIKE THESE:" followed by a list of stupidities that have occured in the past. thus the actual, important message gets lost in the convolution. to make things worse, the lack of creativity in the inhabitants of the planet earth creates a tendency to do what stupid things had previously been done in the past, rather than to come up with new stupid things of their own. combine this with their lack of brain capacity to remember which stupid things result in what stupid consequence, and you have the perfect recipe for history to always naturally repeat itself. historians who have realized that there is nothing they can do about this eventually switch profession to become a lawyer, because this way they can actually take advantage of these creativity-lacking idiots whenever they do something stupid.

this time, history repeated itself again. the visibility got much worse and failed to get better when rob turned the wiper back on. surprisingly enough, although it shouldn't be, the blade that he had just replaced began to flap off and made the same noise as its predecessor.

swish swish swish flop swish swish flop swish swish flop swish flop swish flop flop flap scrape.

the blade broke off, got stuck on the windshield for a quick few seconds, giving rob the i-think-i'm-happier-anywhere-else-but-here look, flipped him off, then jumped off the windshield. rob swore and swore and swore and swore and history smiled victoriously.

he turned on the radio and by chance it played BJ thomas' "raindrops keep falling on my head." this made rob somewhat happy, partly because he was no longer alone in his suffering, but mostly because he at least had a roof, doors, windows, and windshield keeping him dry, while BJ thomas had to stand in the rain, wet, dejected, and occasionally deal with miserable bastards like him who would purposely and intentionally hit a large puddle to make anyone standing in the rain wet, dejected, and dirty.

despite having a bad long- and short-term memory, rob recalled that the last time number 17 poured there was a man trying to hitchhike, at whom he aimed the mud from the big puddle that he had hit with high speed. rob wondered if the same thing would happen again this time, which would make him even happier. his logic told him that history just repeated itself, so what follows would be repeated again, so he happily looked around for a victim without paying attention to where he was going at all. he figured since he couldn't see anything through the windshield anyway, it would not make any difference whether or not he was paying attention to the road. this appealed to his already-retarded logic and was executed without further query. after six repeated cycle of BJ thomas' "raindrops keep falling on my head," broadcasted from a radio broadcasting company which was having technical difficulties at the moment, rob gave up and kicked the radio and swore and swore and swore and swore and history smiled victoriously once more.

a convenience store appeared slowly out of the dark haze of rain. whether or not it was an actual convenience store was still debatable, but since rob had no one to debate with, he decided that it had to be a convenience store. rob slowed down and pulled into the parking lot. number 17 was still pouring hard, and he could not see the parking spot lines, so he decided to just park his truck right in front of the main entrance.

rob was just about to think what kind of alcohol he should buy when he realized that he did not have any money at all with him. so he started thinking about what kind of alcohol he should smuggle out of the store instead. rob walked along the liquor aisle towards the back of the store, when something caught his eyes.

umbrellas.

rob realized that it would be easier to smuggle an umbrella out of the store rather than a six-pack of beer, so living up to his reputation as a lazy bastard, he opted for this instead. rob picked an umbrella, tossed it on the ground, stomped on it many times, opened and closed it repeatedly, spat on it, and everything else he could think of to make this umbrella looked like a used umbrella, which he could then smuggle out of the store by claiming that the umbrella was his since he had bought it a couple weeks ago and it was just purely by chance that this store had the same kind of umbrella. after completely battering the umbrella, rob walked towards the main entrance.

the lady behind the register saw rob leaving with an unpaid umbrella, but she decided to not do anything about the umbrella since it, a completely battered umbrella, now had no selling value anyway. rob liked to think that his plan worked and that people were deceived, so this was what he decided to believe instead.

rob left the convenience store feeling a bit cheerful. now he had something that BJ thomas did not: an umbrella. the implication of this, he thought, would be that he would now be little less wet, and that was always a good thing. he decided that he would still be happy even if he still got as wet as he used to be without an umbrella, because now at least he could blame it on the umbrella.

he popped it open and almost instantaneously the rain stopped.

if this were deemed an "act of god," rob thought to himself, then he would be the rain god, which he was, but of course was completely oblivious of. rob scratched his eyes. he could not believe it. for the first time since he was born into this wretched rainy world, the sky was clear. he could see the sun and the cloud without having to worry about his eyes getting pulverized by continuous drops of falling water.

rob closed the umbrella and almost instantaneously number 17 poured down again.

he stood there, wet, staring in an utter disbelief. a couple of seconds later he realized how stupid he would look, being in the rain while holding a perfectly working umbrella, so he popped it open again and the rain almost instantaneously stopped again. he repeated this process a few times until he convinced his subconsciousness that it was in no way a coincidence. the result of this was, of course, people staring at him because he looked like a total idiot, but that was the least of his concern now, because he just found out that he had just found an umbrella that allowed him to control the rain, although in a rather retarded manner. he wanted to go back into the store to complain that the umbrella he just stole worked the wrong way, and that he would like to steal another one. but then he realized that this would not work particularly well and abandoned the idea completely.

the umbrella was opened and the sky was clear when rob walked back to his truck, but halfway down the distance, rob decided to close the umbrella and let the rain pour down again. the change was nice, but he had already missed the pouring rain. he felt that there is something a clear sky is missing other than, the obviously obvious one, a pouring rain. he got on his truck, put the umbrella down on the floor, and started his engine.

the ugly gray truck rolled away while number 17 is still pouring, but the driver, rob mckenna, still oblivious of the fact that he was the rain god, was no longer grumbling. instead, in place of the usual frown, he had a big smile.