Intern Diaries: Rain, Rain, Go Away

By Maddie

Rainy weather in New York really sucks. I know that rain sucks wherever you live, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the Big Apple is probably the city that is least conducive to rainstorms. As all of you east-coasters probably remember, it rained, thundered, lightning, misted – you get the drift – every day in June. Then July rolled around and we thought the horrendous weather was over, until yesterday.

I was commuting from New Jersey, and my mom generously offered to drive me to the bus stop. I tumbled out of the car with my paper bag lunch in hand only to trip over the slippery sidewalk, causing my three hard-boiled eggs (don’t hate) to fall out and smush together on the street. Accident #1. On the bus, I began to apply my makeup and things were going smoothly until the bus driver stopped short (why does everyone forget how to drive on the highway when there’s a little water on their windshield??), and mascara was dragged across my cheek and nose.

My arrival in Times Square reminded me how horrible the subway is when its rainy – wet umbrellas dripping all over you, everyone smelling like a wet dog, the air conditioner causing your wet clothing to stick to you like plaster, etc. And walking down the street is just the worst. All those people with the “big umbrellas,” the ones that could house a small family and are constantly dripping on all the smaller people with smaller umbrellas, kept bumping into me and I had to duck to avoid dangerous contact. I happen to work four blocks away from Grand Central station, so you can imagine how crowded it was.

The sky was dark all day – it perpetually looked like 5 pm – and everyone in the office was depressed… I could just feel it. I didn’t even want to go outside to buy my routine packs of gum and Cheez-its at the bodega next store to my office. At least things weren’t as bad for me as they were for the intern I work with. She chose to wear a long sleeved silk blouse and arrived to the office completely drenched. Her shirt spent the next two hours hanging over the air conditioner and I can imagine that it wasn’t feeling too silky when she finally put it back on.

Around 3, I heard two women in the bathroom discussing the downpour.
“I read that every summer is going to be like this from now on,” one of them said.
“It’s because of global warming,” said the other. (Umm, right… I believe this is old news. Sometimes you have to wonder how some people got their jobs! Ha. I chuckled to myself from the stall where I was spying.)

My day ended with the most entertaining rain-accident of them all (and don’t tell me I’m an a**hole, cause you’d laugh too): A Wall-Street-esque man was racing down the sidewalk when he slipped on the wet sidewalk and fell right under the counter of a Halal cart (you know, that weird mystery meat that smells oddly good and is sold on the street all day long). He was fine, just a little wet in the tushy area. I scooted off before he saw me, and about fifteen other people, holding in their laughter.