It’s raining here in DC. Has been for two weeks. I was caught in a shower and afterwards realized that I treated the event with a lot more annoyance than it warranted. So I did some free writing about the event, a paragraph in which I tried to capture my out-sized, overwrought reaction to the minor inconvenience. Hence:

Bad Hair Day

The unceasing hail of water, condensed ten-thousand feet above me in the stratosphere, heavenly realm of Boreas and Zephyr, drenches my hair like a divine curse. “Oh!” I wail. How you empyrean beings have chosen me as your toy, a battered mouse — bloody, bowed, near death — between the paws of a sadistic cat. My carefully coifed bangs are now plastered against my forehead and spilling its fixing mousse into my mouth. I taste the bitter flavor of styling gel. It matches my desolate fate — a head of sodden hair that must resemble a dead squirrel. The rain continues, a judgment and a condemnation. I claim brotherhood with Job and declare that only a leprous skin disease or the extinction of my family would be worse than this fate: a head of sodden hair. Bad hair day indeed. The end of the world.