P.E.: Finding out your Rain Boots are Perforated is Worse than Puberty

Making it to work, or the grocery store, or even out of bed on a rainy day is hard enough. That soothing grey coming through the windows, that pitter-patter overhead, that knowledge that going outside will make you wet, and thus, grumpy, has been more than enough to keep me inside many a day before.

But some days, if you want to "keep your job" and "make enough money to eat this week," you just have to man up and venture outside. If you live on the east coast, or in a major city, this usually involves rubbery-plasticky rain boots. We do a lot of walking in these parts, or maybe we just hate our feet being wet - point is, everyone has a pair.

And then, the day that it's raining harder than it ever has been before, and you have to walk a mile or two to your destination, and the bus zooms past just before you reach the stop, so you know your choices are either to wait in the rain for another 20 minutes, or just suck it up. On that day, your rain boots inevitably decide to jump the shark (for historical definition of "jump the shark," please e-mail us at worsethanpuberty@gmail.com!)

But it gets worse. Because it's not at least a balanced, equal, right-and-left-squashing-in-time sort of misery; no, that would be at least partially kind. Instead, only one boot decides to make a break for it, leaving one foot almost painfully dry, while the other soaks in amounts of water you'd never even known was possible.

Sure, you could just go buy new rain boots, or if you're me, stick a plastic bag inside the broken one you have, and hope for good walkin' weather until you have enough extra cash that spending it on rain boots wouldn't just be insulting, but for that one day, when you've already left home and the rain is coming down by the bathtub-full, there's nothing you can do but walk on, squish-step-squish-stepping your way to your final destination.

-Posted by Jilly