Last night the rain started, kept up all night and has just now stopped. This morning, during what my mother would have called a deluge, Gracie and I went out. Between the house and the car, a short distance, I got soaked. Now you’re probably thinking why didn’t this fool use an umbrella or at least a jacket. Well, the umbrella is in the car, and I didn’t even give the jacket a thought. Gracie and I just ran. She got in first. By the time I did, my shirt was soaked, and I was already cold. Why did I go out in the middle of a Noah rain you might be wondering? I needed a blood test, a fasting blood test, and I wanted it over as quickly as possible as my body was screaming for its morning coffee. I was dressed and on the road ten minutes after I woke up. I go to a lab that never seems to have any other people so I was in and out in five minutes, got even wetter running back to the car and right away headed to Dunkin’ Donuts. The line at the drive-up window was long, but it was fast. I got two cups of a coffee and a lemon donut, my treat to myself for getting the errand done and for being soaked. The first things I did when I got home were to change into dry clothes and take a towel to Gracie.

This is the first rain in weeks, and it was a good one. I even had to shut windows last night as it was so chilly and damp. The paper predicts today will be rainy on and off. I’m going nowhere!

I am on a rampage of late. Sometimes I wish I had a cow catcher on the front of my car. I’d use it to move the cars in front of me going around 20 or 25. The driver is usually a gawker who looks to the left and right, never behind. I let people out into traffic all the time, especially those crossing into the other lane. A few wave and thank me. Others just go as if the space I had made was a God-given right of passage. Common courtesy is becoming rarer and heading toward extinction. Because of my surgery, I had to give up 4 seats, two each to two different theaters: one theater’s two seats weren’t super expensive but the other two were, over $60.00 each. I didn’t ask for any money, After all, I had already paid for the season tickets, but a thank you would have been a nice gesture. Not one person bothered to do that. The other day I got cut off by a car coming out of a side street. Sometimes that’s the only way to get on the road here in the summer, but not this time. There wasn’t a single car behind me. A wait of about 5 seconds was all the driver would have needed. I guess that was way too long to wait.

The other day I told a person, “You’re welcome,” after I had held the door for him because his arms full of packages, and he was walking away. He muttered, “Thank you,” under his breath, a coerced response, but I’m hoping he’ll pass it along, this small bit of courtesy.

My mother taught me to be courteous when I was little. Please and thank you were the first lessons. I’m wishing for a resurgence.