Sometimes the mo(i)st unwelcome surprises in life sneak up from behind.
In arid Calgary where we used to live, rain is infrequent and everything dries fast afterward, so it’s difficult to inadvertently sit on something that will drench your drawers. But here on Vancouver Island, it rains more, it rains longer, and everything stays wet even though it looks dry.
So when we moved out here, I adjusted my habits accordingly: I always check outdoor surfaces before sitting down. But (and it’s a wet butt) the West Coast has sneaky ways to soak my skivvies despite my precautions.
F’rinstance, there’s the rogue wave that caught me unawares while I was crouched in the shallows checking out the contents of a tide pool. One minute I’m warm and dry and utterly absorbed in watching the little aquatic critters; and the next minute I get butt-slapped by icy ocean water. (And immediately after that, I squelched rapidly back to my car hoping nobody would notice that I’d apparently peed my pants.)
But I learned that lesson fast; and after nearly two years out here, I was starting to feel pretty complacent about my ability to identify situations that might dampen my derrière.
That mossy log that feels dry to the touch? Nope. It’s dry on the surface, but moss holds water like a sponge. It’s just waiting to humidify my haunches.
That chair placed welcomingly on the deck in the early-morning sunshine? Nope again. It’s covered by a thick but virtually invisible layer of dew.
So the other day I found a plastic Adirondack chair out in the sun on a fine afternoon. It hadn’t rained for a day, but I swiped my hand across the seat just to be certain. Dry.
I sank into the chair, stretching out my legs and admiring the sweeping mountain view over a vivid green golf course. Birds sang and fluffy clouds drifted by in the blue sky. Ahhhh. Heaven.
I eased back to take advantage of the perfect reclining angle and discovered (butt-first, of course) that plastic Adirondack chairs retain a pool of rainwater in a deep groove right where the back meets the seat. In this case, my seat.
So there I was, on my way to a birthday party in jeans with a big and highly-visible wet spot on the ass. With, of course, no time to go home and change.
So the Wet Coast won again; but now I’ve figured out all its tricks – my butt won’t be its joke again!
(I hope…)
Book 14 update: I made it to the middle of Chapter 19 this week against all odds (it was a very busy week). Hoping for some quality writing time this week!
Author Diane Henders 
Had to laugh…I so followed you with our 6 months of living in the Seattle area….at the time having come out of sunny Southern California…hit the same thing you described…it truly does look like a toilet accident…lol
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Yep, this is why I always carry a light jacket – not because I might get cold, but because I might need to tie it around my waist to hide the evidence while I make a hasty retreat. 😉
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Well at least you can console yourself that you rarely will be shoveling snow off of your outdoor seats. Not that it’s consoling to your wet butt at the birthday party scene.
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I hope that’s true about the snow – so far we’re two for two with snowy winters; but at least it doesn’t stick around here the way it does in Calgary. You’re already off to a disgustingly snowy start out there – I hope it’s not a sign of things to come for the rest of your winter.
And at least I was among friends at the birthday party – my wet butt was good for some laughs!
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I love reading your post almost as much as I love reading your books. However it occurred to me that every time I read them , just like your books, I wish there was more. I feel like you’re leaving me hanging. In a good way though!😂
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Thanks – I’m so glad you enjoy the posts! I sometimes feel as though I spend too much time blogging and not enough time writing; but I love “talking” to all my readers, and comments like yours make it all worthwhile! 😀
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I’m laughing, but it is a wry laugh, because my butt attracts water like that too . . . You didn’t mention sitting on rocks at the shore, so just in case you ever see one worth sitting on, I feel I should point out that those, too, harbour grooves, pits, and fissures that hold water . . .
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Ooh, excellent advice. Thanks for that! I’ve also discovered that those ocean rocks tend to be coated with ultra-slippery slime in an innocuous rock-brown colour (so as to be unobtrusive to hikers, and therefore as treacherous as possible). I love the ocean, but I don’t trust it!
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One of the most fun things I can think to do would be to take you to an unfamiliar environment, sit back, and watch the fun begin. You are a hoot!
Of course, nothing like that has ever happened to me.
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I think a lot of the things that happen to me would never happen to anyone else – I’m a magnet for minor mishaps and general weirdness. But oddly enough, I rarely run into trouble in unfamiliar environments – I guess I’m on the alert then. It’s when I start to get comfortable that the mayhem begins…
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I could live there. Three hundred days of rain a year? Yep, I’m in. Need to work on the car? That’s what garages are for. Getting wet? Well, isn’t that what happens when you’re around water? If it gets wet, it’ll get dry. Or not. I’m good either way.
Yeah, yeah, I know. So, where do I live? A place where the annual rainfall is measured with a micrometer, that’s where. Well, alright, a ruler. Okay, okay, TWO rulers. But not a yardstick. Actually, a ruler and a quarter would just about do it. Fourteen point nine inches, to be exact.
You guys get that much every WEEK. But then that’s why it’s so green there and so, er, NOT here. And how’s your water well doing of late?
(snark mode: OFF) Sorry, couldn’t help myself 🙂
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LOL! I don’t blame you. I did plenty of snarking when we lived in Alberta and our garden turned to dust and blew away with the wind.
My only wish for here is that we could average out the rainfall. The past two summers we had no rain at all for two months; and last November alone we got 18″. But I’m told the drought is “unusual”. (The same as they told us for the past two winters that snow is “unusual” – we’ll see.) But at least as long as we get rain in the winter, we can store it for the summer droughts. Our next project is putting a liner in the big dry pit that will hopefully someday become a pond…
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Yeah, I totally get that ‘unusual’ comment from the locals. A hunnerd or two years ago, we moved from the high plains part of the Texas Panhandle to near the southeast corner of the Panhandle near the Red River and Oklahoma. From dead-flat row-crop country as far as the eye could see to rolling hills, a river or two, several creeks, with green stuff and wildlife thrown in for good measure. (I liked it, but the wildlife didn’t seem to care much for being thrown anywhere, green stuff or not. Pretty narrow minded if you ask me. Just sayin’…)
Anyway, everyone we talked to down there before we moved said how much we’d like being away from ‘all those sandstorms.’ They just went on and on about it. Cool! I hate sandstorms. Always have. Wouldn’t miss ’em a bit.
So Thuh Missus, our infant firstborn, and I load up and go house hunting there (it was a two hour trip, FYI) and sight-see and generally take a good look around the countryside. We had a great time, and all the green was a very welcome change. We were pumped. Until the storm came. Blew in out of nothing that afternoon.
We had to stay in a motel there in the tiny little town. The wind topped 75 mph, visibility dropped to FREAKING ZERO, and the roads out of town were CLOSED DUE TO BEING COVERED TWO FEET DEEP WITH DRIFTS OF SAND!!! So much dust blew into our motel room from wind pressure (doors and windows fit well; the seals were overwhelmed by sheer force) that we had to pull a sheet off the bed, wet it in the shower, and cover our son’s crib with it so he could breath.
No, I didn’t make that up. It was late the next afternoon before the roads opened again. They used road graders and SNOW PLOWS to do the job.
A couple of the old-timers there jokingly (I think it was jokingly, but I’m still not really positive) blamed us for it. “That ain’t never happened in these parts until Y’ALL got here!)
They allowed as how that storm was ‘unusual.’ I guess they were right. We lived there for ten years, and that never happened again. But then there were those two huge floods almost exactly a year apart that washed whole fence lines and a lot of livestock completely away. And the tornadoes, one of which blew our friends’ house to SPLINTERS and scattered everything they owned over ten square miles. And some absolutely crazy ice storms that snapped THOUSANDS of utility poles and broke limbs off practically every tree in six counties. Two years in a row of record-breaking heat with temperatures over a hundred for forty-something straight days.
All that stuff was what the locals called ‘unusual,’ too. So, yeah. I totally get it. So anymore, when someone says something like,” Unusual weather we’re having, aren’t we?” I take it to mean BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES, IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!!
My wife thinks I’m over-reacting. Personally, I’d think it unusual if I didn’t…
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O. M. G.!!! Two feet of drifted sand? Tornadoes and ice storms? Temperatures over a hundred for forty-something straight days?!? Yikes! Nothing personal, but if that’s the kind of weather you bring with you, I hope you stay far, far away from Vancouver Island. A little dump of snow and a couple of months of drought every now and then is peanuts by comparison. (And I really don’t think you’re over-reacting.)
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HaHaHa. give it up. You’re just gonna walk around with wet spots. Grin, giggle and keep on keeping on.
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I admit I was giggling when it happened (although a bit ruefully). What the heck; at least I had a conversation-starter at the birthday party! 😉
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I hate it when that happens. Down here in NorCal the only time an outdoor seat would be wet is if the chair was on the lawn when the sprinklers came on. I’m still amazed that you live in a place where water falls from the sky.
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It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? I was afraid I’d miss Calgary’s sun, but I love the rain here because it’s such a miracle compared to what I’m used to. Maybe I’ll get tired of the “miracle” in a few years, but for now… wow! 🙂
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