It’s not too often that an Arkansan stands underneath an umbrella in August, staring forlornly into the distance, uttering the words, “I wish the sun would shine.”
August usually feels like this:
Over the last week, however, Arkansas has been shrouded with a blanket of clouds and drenched with gallons of rain. (I don’t care for measuring rainfall in inches. Gallons seem more accurate. I’d estimate this week’s total rainfall at…eleventy-billion gallons.) The sun popped out for about 11.5 seconds over the course of six days. I counted.
Finally, today, the sun triumphed over the clouds. Good thing, too. I was about to begin breaking apart my furniture to hastily construct a small boat. Or see if the United States Swimming Team would loan me Michael Phelps for a few days. (Still gotta get to work, you know.)
Every morning this week…on my way to work–in the pouring rain–I noticed something that made me scrunch my face in confusion.
Every morning this week…I watched automatic sprinklers watering the water.
Yep, we had an excess dose of dihydrogen monoxide going on here. Without arguing the political or environmental aspects of the issue (and there are many, I’m sure…but this is largely an entertainment blog, so I try to keep it peppy and hope you’re entertained), I decided there were a few reasons that property owners were allowing this to occur:
- Marketing property as “waterfront” was going to be a lot easier with the extra assistance.
- Maybe the sprinklers weren’t actually running at all. Perhaps they were just leaking…forcefully. You know, because of all the rain.
- If setting a flashing “12:00” on a VCR still confuses the living daylights out of most people (i.e., Yours Truly), resetting an entire small-scale irrigation system was probably going to take longer than the week of rainfall.
I’ve never actually owned an automatic sprinkler system, so I’m not sure how it all works…but I’d sure be irritated if I realized it was running in the rain and I knew I was going to pay the bill for it.
The sun’s out now, though. I’ll be interested to see who all is automatically watering their mud tomorrow.