ENG 1100
That Ringing in the Rain Keeps Me Awake
I thought I could make it out before it came, but I was wrong. With only twenty minutes left to go in the hell known as World Civilization 1031, I heard it, the sound of a million marbles dancing off the roof and down to the ground. It was raining. Like my day couldn't get any worse, it's now raining. The room quickly filed with chatter from worried girls declaring to stay inside until the storm passed; to prevent their hair from getting frizzy no less. I wasn't going to just stand here when class lets out. I want to sleep.
The stairwell to Brewster was packed with a throng of astonished onlookers as they watched those daring few run for it in the icy rain. It was like attempting to part the Red Sea to get past all of the shrieks of "Oh my God, my hair!" and "Dude, no way I'm going out in that." Upon reaching the threshold of the building I had to choose, stay with the growing number of hydrophobics or make a mad dash to the bus stop at Speight. I've had enough complaining for my day, I want to go to sleep.
Icy, quarter sized rain droplets fell as I was running. So much for straightening my hair this morning. I now look like a drowned rat. There was a lot more rain on the ground than I had anticipated, so much so that my ankles were getting soaked. As I was rounding the corner to Brewster, a very petit girl was holding her umbrella out for me in a polite gesture. I gladly scrambled underneath it to walk across the parking lot with her. The parking lot must have turned into a mini river in the twenty minutes the rain had initially started to fall in. Not realizing this soon enough, the anonymous girl and I simply stepped off the sidewalk onto the pavement. Where is Noah and that stupid Arc when you need it? The water just rushed straight up to my knees and my new umbrella friend's flip flops started to float away, but she barely managed to snag them without shifting the umbrella from above us, an unnecessary move by now in this rain.
As I was trudging up to the front of the Speight building the girl quickly said her goodbyes and flew off inside the building. All I have to do now is make it to the back of the building and catch the bus to North Campus Crossing before it leaves without me. This is the one time I wish that I could be living in a dorm. Having that closeness to get out of this friggin rain sooner, oh how I would love that. It seems that not many have dared to brave this rain to venture elsewhere, but for those few like me that have, we all share one this now. We all look like soaking wet, like a dog that's just nose dived into a pond after a stick. I feel sorry for all the girls who are wearing non-waterproof mascara right now. I fear those raccoon eyes. The grey sky seems so harmless if the monster rain drops are cut out of the picture on the surprisingly quiet campus. The buss is still there, but for how much longer? Normally, I always seem to just miss the horrible over packed excuse for a clown car. Is today going to be like the others? I'm not going to chance it. It's time to run for it. I am not going to stay in the rain this time waiting for another bus to come by.
One seat left, and it's mine. Trying not to slip all over the floor, I decide to sit right up in the front, between two nice, dry girls. Promising not to drip all over them, I slide in and try to make small talk. Totally not my forte. The bus is now filled with the annoying squeak of sneakers on a wet floor and the astonished awes of the dry watching as more adventurers reach the bus to escape from the rain. To make matters worse, the air is freezing on the bus. Who in their right minds would torture us by putting the AC on during a cold rainstorm? This day can't get any worse now. To pass some time, I start rummaging through my bag to make sure I have everything and that my book didn't get soaked like me. I also check to make sure my new cell phone is in it's little Nightmare Before Christmas case on my belt loop. The thought of putting my phone in my bag crosses my mind, but I ignore it. Bad move.
The bus roars to life and just as we were blindly leaving the campus we stop to let one last straggler onto the bus. He seems even worse off than the rest of us refugees. He had to run to stop the bus from leaving him. Unfortunately for this guy, there are no more seats and he stands at the front of the bus and feebly tries to stand his ground as the bus makes its way down the hazy road to the apartments. Finally, the driver turns the heat on after we have been freezing for over ten minutes in our wet clothes. Greenville Boulevard is a waterway, making it almost impossible for the bus to turn since the lane is now submerged in almost a foot of water at least. Everyone is panicking now as we reach the bridge. The bus has been swerving all over the place since we got rolling and no one wants to go swimming if we don't make it over the bridge. Now we learn that our driver is new and she hasn't driven in a rainstorm like this before. How comforting.
Surprisingly, we live to reach the bus stop at the Back Porch of the apartment complex. Only a few casualties, as the ones who had to stand on the bus slipped and fell when we went sliding over the speed bumps. It was like kids running to the ice cream truck like it was never going to come back when we finally stopped. There, at the bus stop, stands a massive group of people, some dry, some wet, all seeking to get a seat on the bus. It's almost impossible to tear through them to make a run for my room…which happens to be the very last building on the corner in the back. A virtual exile of apartments. I ran as fast as I could in the pool of a parking lot only to make it behind the first building. Reaching down to make sure that my phone was okay, I realized something. IT WASN'T THERE. Speedy Gonzales wouldn't have caught up to me the way I started to run back towards the bus. Thankfully, the driver stopped short of turning me into a speed bump and let me on to look for my phone. It doesn't seem to be on the bus though. Now I have to trace my steps from when I got off the bus. Maybe someone pushing me to get onto the bus made it fall. Maybe someone picked it up. Maybe it floated away. Turning the corner from the bus I spot something blue. My phone.
There, in the parking lot, lying at the bottom of a foot of water was my poor phone. To get out of the rain I scoop it up, praying that the washing machine affect has not afflicted this phone as it did my old one. I'm tired now. No more running for me. I'm already soaked through and through so running won't make me dry. I just stroll to my ground floor apartment. To wet to dig for the keys in my bag I have to bang on the front door, hoping at least one of my roomies is home to let me in. It takes a few minutes, but luckily one of them lets me in. I got an instant "what happened to YOU?" look and shuffling in quietly I went to the kitchen. I don't want to get the carpet wet so I'm just going to stand on the linoleum floor. Everything in my bag gets thrown onto the counter and it was right about here when I notice that my history book is completely ruined. This can't be happening.
Forget the stupid book; I don't even like that class. My first and only priority now is my phone. Unfortunately, my room is locked and the towels are in there. Now I have to go across the carpet soaking wet and grab them from my bathroom. Throwing some PJs on and tossing my clothes, shoes and all in the dryer, I have to now think of how to save my phone. The screen is blank and won't change when I turn it on and off. This is not good. I can feel the panic setting in. How am I supposed to call my parents, my friends, my brother, well, maybe not my brother, but what about calling my boyfriend? In a situation like this, my dad would have used a blow dryer on the phone. Here's the dilemma, I don't have a blow dryer with me. My only resort is to try and use my hair straightener.
This is like doing emergency brain surgery or something, not like I've done emergency brain surgery or anything. First, the battery comes out, then the SIMs card. They can sit on the sink for now. Another bad move as the card almost goes bye-bye down the drain when I was moving around too much. I am not going to melt my phone by putting the thing directly on it so maybe a hand towel will help me if I wrap the phone up in it. Now I'm getting somewhere. I jack the straightener onto it's highest setting and try to steam the water out of my phone. Two hours have passed and half a dozen steam burns later, I think it's time to try out my phone. The familiar stupid start up screen comes on and it looks like the phone works, but that could be a lie.
The only way for me to truly find out if my phone is fully healed is to call someone. I can't call my parents, they would wonder why I was calling them, I can't lie to them, and I'm a horrible liar. The only person I can think of to call is my boyfriend's famously unanswered cell phone. After four rings pass I hear that familiar voice saying the most generic thing on earth "You've reached Ryan, please leave a message and I will get back to you." I rattle off about needing him to call me back as soon as he gets this to see if my phone works and then I hang up. I can finally relax now and get what I want, SLEEP.
Just before my psychology class the next morning, I start mashing buttons on my phone. Something is definitely wrong with it. Every time I try and use the back button, it turns into a 4. I'll just set it down and go back to reading, maybe I'm just making it worse. One of my roommates shows up to talk about the notes I missed from the last class and I scoot over to let her sit by my outside the Rawl building. My phone hits the ground. Concerned I've just killed my phone for the last time, I pick it up, only to now see that the buttons work fine. Nothing seems to be wrong with my phone at all. It only has a few scuff marks from its water journey from the day before, but other than that, it's perfectly fine. All that worrying for nothing. Now for my new goal of the day. To take a nap.
I thought I could make it out before it came, but I was wrong. With only twenty minutes left to go in the hell known as World Civilization 1031, I heard it, the sound of a million marbles dancing off the roof and down to the ground. It was raining. Like my day couldn't get any worse, it's now raining. The room quickly filed with chatter from worried girls declaring to stay inside until the storm passed; to prevent their hair from getting frizzy no less. I wasn't going to just stand here when class lets out. I want to sleep.
The stairwell to Brewster was packed with a throng of astonished onlookers as they watched those daring few run for it in the icy rain. It was like attempting to part the Red Sea to get past all of the shrieks of "Oh my God, my hair!" and "Dude, no way I'm going out in that." Upon reaching the threshold of the building I had to choose, stay with the growing number of hydrophobics or make a mad dash to the bus stop at Speight. I've had enough complaining for my day, I want to go to sleep.
Icy, quarter sized rain droplets fell as I was running. So much for straightening my hair this morning. I now look like a drowned rat. There was a lot more rain on the ground than I had anticipated, so much so that my ankles were getting soaked. As I was rounding the corner to Brewster, a very petit girl was holding her umbrella out for me in a polite gesture. I gladly scrambled underneath it to walk across the parking lot with her. The parking lot must have turned into a mini river in the twenty minutes the rain had initially started to fall in. Not realizing this soon enough, the anonymous girl and I simply stepped off the sidewalk onto the pavement. Where is Noah and that stupid Arc when you need it? The water just rushed straight up to my knees and my new umbrella friend's flip flops started to float away, but she barely managed to snag them without shifting the umbrella from above us, an unnecessary move by now in this rain.
As I was trudging up to the front of the Speight building the girl quickly said her goodbyes and flew off inside the building. All I have to do now is make it to the back of the building and catch the bus to North Campus Crossing before it leaves without me. This is the one time I wish that I could be living in a dorm. Having that closeness to get out of this friggin rain sooner, oh how I would love that. It seems that not many have dared to brave this rain to venture elsewhere, but for those few like me that have, we all share one this now. We all look like soaking wet, like a dog that's just nose dived into a pond after a stick. I feel sorry for all the girls who are wearing non-waterproof mascara right now. I fear those raccoon eyes. The grey sky seems so harmless if the monster rain drops are cut out of the picture on the surprisingly quiet campus. The buss is still there, but for how much longer? Normally, I always seem to just miss the horrible over packed excuse for a clown car. Is today going to be like the others? I'm not going to chance it. It's time to run for it. I am not going to stay in the rain this time waiting for another bus to come by.
One seat left, and it's mine. Trying not to slip all over the floor, I decide to sit right up in the front, between two nice, dry girls. Promising not to drip all over them, I slide in and try to make small talk. Totally not my forte. The bus is now filled with the annoying squeak of sneakers on a wet floor and the astonished awes of the dry watching as more adventurers reach the bus to escape from the rain. To make matters worse, the air is freezing on the bus. Who in their right minds would torture us by putting the AC on during a cold rainstorm? This day can't get any worse now. To pass some time, I start rummaging through my bag to make sure I have everything and that my book didn't get soaked like me. I also check to make sure my new cell phone is in it's little Nightmare Before Christmas case on my belt loop. The thought of putting my phone in my bag crosses my mind, but I ignore it. Bad move.
The bus roars to life and just as we were blindly leaving the campus we stop to let one last straggler onto the bus. He seems even worse off than the rest of us refugees. He had to run to stop the bus from leaving him. Unfortunately for this guy, there are no more seats and he stands at the front of the bus and feebly tries to stand his ground as the bus makes its way down the hazy road to the apartments. Finally, the driver turns the heat on after we have been freezing for over ten minutes in our wet clothes. Greenville Boulevard is a waterway, making it almost impossible for the bus to turn since the lane is now submerged in almost a foot of water at least. Everyone is panicking now as we reach the bridge. The bus has been swerving all over the place since we got rolling and no one wants to go swimming if we don't make it over the bridge. Now we learn that our driver is new and she hasn't driven in a rainstorm like this before. How comforting.
Surprisingly, we live to reach the bus stop at the Back Porch of the apartment complex. Only a few casualties, as the ones who had to stand on the bus slipped and fell when we went sliding over the speed bumps. It was like kids running to the ice cream truck like it was never going to come back when we finally stopped. There, at the bus stop, stands a massive group of people, some dry, some wet, all seeking to get a seat on the bus. It's almost impossible to tear through them to make a run for my room…which happens to be the very last building on the corner in the back. A virtual exile of apartments. I ran as fast as I could in the pool of a parking lot only to make it behind the first building. Reaching down to make sure that my phone was okay, I realized something. IT WASN'T THERE. Speedy Gonzales wouldn't have caught up to me the way I started to run back towards the bus. Thankfully, the driver stopped short of turning me into a speed bump and let me on to look for my phone. It doesn't seem to be on the bus though. Now I have to trace my steps from when I got off the bus. Maybe someone pushing me to get onto the bus made it fall. Maybe someone picked it up. Maybe it floated away. Turning the corner from the bus I spot something blue. My phone.
There, in the parking lot, lying at the bottom of a foot of water was my poor phone. To get out of the rain I scoop it up, praying that the washing machine affect has not afflicted this phone as it did my old one. I'm tired now. No more running for me. I'm already soaked through and through so running won't make me dry. I just stroll to my ground floor apartment. To wet to dig for the keys in my bag I have to bang on the front door, hoping at least one of my roomies is home to let me in. It takes a few minutes, but luckily one of them lets me in. I got an instant "what happened to YOU?" look and shuffling in quietly I went to the kitchen. I don't want to get the carpet wet so I'm just going to stand on the linoleum floor. Everything in my bag gets thrown onto the counter and it was right about here when I notice that my history book is completely ruined. This can't be happening.
Forget the stupid book; I don't even like that class. My first and only priority now is my phone. Unfortunately, my room is locked and the towels are in there. Now I have to go across the carpet soaking wet and grab them from my bathroom. Throwing some PJs on and tossing my clothes, shoes and all in the dryer, I have to now think of how to save my phone. The screen is blank and won't change when I turn it on and off. This is not good. I can feel the panic setting in. How am I supposed to call my parents, my friends, my brother, well, maybe not my brother, but what about calling my boyfriend? In a situation like this, my dad would have used a blow dryer on the phone. Here's the dilemma, I don't have a blow dryer with me. My only resort is to try and use my hair straightener.
This is like doing emergency brain surgery or something, not like I've done emergency brain surgery or anything. First, the battery comes out, then the SIMs card. They can sit on the sink for now. Another bad move as the card almost goes bye-bye down the drain when I was moving around too much. I am not going to melt my phone by putting the thing directly on it so maybe a hand towel will help me if I wrap the phone up in it. Now I'm getting somewhere. I jack the straightener onto it's highest setting and try to steam the water out of my phone. Two hours have passed and half a dozen steam burns later, I think it's time to try out my phone. The familiar stupid start up screen comes on and it looks like the phone works, but that could be a lie.
The only way for me to truly find out if my phone is fully healed is to call someone. I can't call my parents, they would wonder why I was calling them, I can't lie to them, and I'm a horrible liar. The only person I can think of to call is my boyfriend's famously unanswered cell phone. After four rings pass I hear that familiar voice saying the most generic thing on earth "You've reached Ryan, please leave a message and I will get back to you." I rattle off about needing him to call me back as soon as he gets this to see if my phone works and then I hang up. I can finally relax now and get what I want, SLEEP.
Just before my psychology class the next morning, I start mashing buttons on my phone. Something is definitely wrong with it. Every time I try and use the back button, it turns into a 4. I'll just set it down and go back to reading, maybe I'm just making it worse. One of my roommates shows up to talk about the notes I missed from the last class and I scoot over to let her sit by my outside the Rawl building. My phone hits the ground. Concerned I've just killed my phone for the last time, I pick it up, only to now see that the buttons work fine. Nothing seems to be wrong with my phone at all. It only has a few scuff marks from its water journey from the day before, but other than that, it's perfectly fine. All that worrying for nothing. Now for my new goal of the day. To take a nap.