The weather altered our plans yesterday. We were back in town, dodging the rain. Wound up at the farmer’s market between storms. We strolled to the booth owned by our wedding cake people. As my wife opened her purse, retrieving her wallet to pay for our purchases, I took a few steps back and leaned against a wooden pole. Just then, a sudden gust of wind came out of nowhere. The tarp roof of the booth lifted. What seemed like a child’s plastic swimming pool’s worth of water came crashing down on my wife’s head. I laughed hard.
“Glad you think it was funny!” My wife slowly turned around, a purse full of water, wallet soaked… and a semi direct hit on her head and shoulders.
I compounded my error, “Damn, I wish I had filmed that.”
My wife gave me the death stare to end all death stares. I tried very hard not to laugh anymore. Dinner plans we gone. But still, we stopped by the beach on the way home. My wife can never resist the beach. Even soaking wet. Even furious with my laughter.
A much bigger storm was about to slam the beach. Torrential rain and hail. The last of the fishing boats racing for the safety of the harbor. I took a few shots out the sunroof. My wife didn’t mind. After all, she was already wet. And home we fled.
She had smiled on the beach. Though she wouldn’t admit it. She always smiles on the beach.
I was wrong to laugh. But it was so funny. If the roles were reversed, the laughter never would have ended. Waiting for the corners of her mouth to turn upward again, away from the beach, I remembered the last and only other time she was unexpectedly drenched. Dating just a few weeks, we were washing my car in my parent’s driveway. She was seventeen, wearing cute short shorts and a “summer is here” top. I unclenched the trigger of the hose sprayer and enjoyed the view. She was holding a sponge, and was completely dry. Too dry. A commercial or movie scene popped into my mind. Summer, water and girlfriends go together. Good things would happen if…
I pulled the trigger. The pent up water pressure blasted her in the face, and lower. Yep, that day the fury was much worse. Somehow, our children were still born. We stayed together. Weathered the storms, the crazy times that were much worse than a bucket full of water. Accidental or otherwise. A lifetime of bucket challenges among the sunny days.