Thanks, Mr. Raincloud, sir, we're done now 

Enough already.
Enough of the “It’s raining and even if it’s a pain in the ass, I know we need it.� Enough of the sky-is-gonna-fall headlines, the post-adolescent TV weather-talkers waving their arms at a screen while they’re reading from another screen 90 degrees off camera. Enough of the lousy driving conditions, the umbrella blown inside out.

I’m sick of it. Get it? Enough rain, already.

I spent the first one-third of my life on the East Coast, where it rains without much ceremony. I lived in New York and New Jersey and Washington, D.C., where it rains all year, bone-chilling in November, picnic-canceling in July.

I moved to California because I heard that it rains only in the winter and not much even then.

I’m convinced that California is a leader in all things because it doesn’t rain here. The “rust belt� is rusty because it rains there.

There must be a scientific study somewhere on the effects of rain on worker efficiency. There are scientific studies on everything from peanut butter as a skin tonic to the relationship of television viewing to criminal behavior, and the one on rain and work habits probably shows that sunshine and clear weather makes people work better, accomplish more, have better sex, and lose weight.

Rain, on the other hand, makes people less efficient, impotent, and fat.

Or it just drives them crazy. In W. Somerset Maugham’s story, “Rain,� a quiet, well-behaved missionary was turned into a wild, depraved lunatic under the influences of an endless tropical downpour. True, there was also Sadie

Thompson, a prostitute, who kept things humming.

As for me, rain turns my brain into tapioca pudding. I’m hypnotized by it. The first fall of drops on the roof catches my ear and I’m sucked into the vortex of the rain rhythm.

I move to a window and watch it fall, trying at times to follow a drop as it descends onto the deck outside. It seems to work better when I trace the fall in reverse, starting with a splat and then following the invisible line upward to catch a drop as it heads down. A pointless exercise, it usually winds up with me just looking at the splats on the deck, unable to pull away.

Meanwhile, the work waits. The bed is unmade, the filing a mess, the book un-read. If it weren’t for auto-pay, I’d probably be in foreclosure.

Listen, we don’t need any more rain. Unpatriotic as that may sound, we have had our quota and then some. What’s falling now is excess, surfeit, overflow, waste, and who needs it?

I called my friendly shaman the other day and asked whether there is a ceremony for drought.

No, he said, there’s only one for rain.

I asked whether he could do it in reverse.

He hung up on me.

Did I also say that rain makes people crabby? ³

Morro Bay resident Marvin Sosna says if you don’t like his commentary, go jump in a lake. He can be reached at [email protected].