Spring Term, every year, is the term of rain. Constant, downpouring rain. I learned this through scientific study of rain levels through the last three Spring Terms, and will continue my study through June. The results of my study conclusively — and statistically significantly — show that it rains every single day of Spring Term, with frequent thunderstorms. A few exceptions from my study are that I was abroad sophomore year, and thus took a break from my research. Additionally, last year there was very little rain, which I excluded from the study because it was an outlier.
Regardless, there are a few things you should know about handling rain at school. The first is that neither umbrellas nor raincoats will be effective.
Raincoats are great in theory. In fact, I love my raincoat. It’s purple and long enough to actually keep me dry and it has a hood and it’s not so warm that it’s too warm. It has one unfortunate feature. Two, actually, but one is a me problem. The me problem is that its arms are no longer super waterproof, so I don’t stay entirely dry in it. The real problem, and the reason it is an ineffective tool against rain, is that you have to do something with it when you get inside.
See, I don’t like being all soggy, and I don’t like getting everything around me all soggy. But, my raincoat leaves me no other options. I’m not going to sit in class in a dripping raincoat, yet if I drape it on the back of my chair, it’ll splatter water everywhere. Should I just put it in a pile next to me? That would be weird. There is simply no good raincoat storage option, so I must rule them out as an option.
This problem has been solved for umbrellas. Umbrella bags exist! (Although, not on campus. But that’s a different point). But, the problem with umbrellas is that they’re small and loseable. And it seems easy to simply throw one in your backpack in case you need it later. This seems like a good idea, but then it inevitably doesn’t rain. Although, if you’re hoping to guarantee that it won’t rain, carrying an umbrella works. But, if you have an umbrella, it won’t rain.
If you have an umbrella and by some series of strange events it rains, you will then have a soggy umbrella. I’ve never been clear on what to do with a soggy umbrella, but perhaps you could argue that you can put it near you on the floor and it’ll be fine. Perhaps that’s true. Maybe I’m just bitter because of the other umbrella problem: they don’t work!
Wind is a thing that exists (for more information, look one article to the left), and umbrellas forget that. If you’re hoping to stay dry and rain is coming down at any angle that seems remotely possible (note: physics people? please help? I think I need some data here), then you will not stay dry, and you will be sad.
But what if you decide not to be sad? All of these rain tools miss the fundamental part of rain: it falls from the sky to drench you, and that is unavoidable. We as a campus need to embrace showing up to class absolutely soggy and looking a bit like a drowned mouse. It’s very Carleton-chic these days.
Am I biased by having met a friend through a shared dripping-on-the-floor experience in an unexpected rainstorm? Maybe. But I think we all need to embrace the weather a bit more. Or find a way for it to rain less.
