Our apartment is on the third floor, and offers us a decent view of the swimming pool of a neighboring apartment complex across the street. The other day, there were several people splashing around in the pool, having some summer fun. The sky started to turn dark as a storm began to brew in the west. I love a good thunderstorm and settled in at the window to watch it roll in. The swimmers swam on, unwilling to give up their fun for the threat of bad weather. There was a grumble of thunder. Soon, rain started to fall. Not a torrential downpour, just a good, steady rain.

At this point, the bathers clambered out of the pool and, still dripping, stretched their towels over their heads as makeshift umbrellas and dashed for their cars. And I had to wonder: Why? You were just swimming, you’re already drenched, and here you are scurrying under cover so you don’t get—what? More wet? I can understand wanting to get out of a large body of standing water in a thunderstorm, but there had been no lightning, and I sincerely doubt the towels would have helped a bit if there had. This was all about the rain.

So people who had been completely submerged a moment before were now attempting to not be dampened further by small droplets of water on their way to getting in their cars where they would sit and not be rained on, but remain wet. I don’t know, maybe the PH balance of that pool is way off or something.