Temerity Jane

I’m an AZ noob.

A week or so ago, I took Brinkley to the park down the street for a walk and a Brinkley photo shoot, because his fans demand new and fresh Brinkley documentation with ever-increasing fervor.

While I was down there, I saw this sign:

And I was all “AH HA HA ARIZONA WHAT THE HELL. “Closed when flooded” my foot. Because yeah, parks just flood. Seriously? A park needs a flooding warning? And you’re going to be all prosecutey about it? You do know, Arizona, that this is Arizona? I could fill this park with Brinkley drool before your twice-yearly sprinkles could flood it. COME ON, ARIZONA. Don’t go carving such mock-worthy shit into plastic! That’s nearly permanent.”

Well.

Then there was today.

Oh. Well.

Hm. Will you look at that.

I’d get closer, but I don’t want to get prosecuted.

*slow clap*

Well played, Arizona. Well. Played.

In case you didn’t know, Internet, Arizona (our area and north) is having just about the worst storm in the last 10 or 20 years. I’m kind of bewildered by the whole thing, really, because it just doesn’t seem like that much rain. I mean, in Maryland, it would just rain for a week on end and it was wet and gross and everything smelled kind of like wet dog, but eh, that’s life.

But here, the ground likes to spite itself, basically. Arizona gets so little water, so the ground feels really snubbed. Then when the rain does finally show up, the ground is like, “Oh, so now you’re just going to come around? No, sir. I already went and developed some cacti. Don’t you come knocking now after I had to come up with a whole new brand of plant life,” and basically just refuses to absorb anything ever.

So, when you’re driving around Arizona, you go over bridges a lot, which are built above these shallow kind of man-made canyons and signs say “Such and Such River” or “Whatever Town Wash,” and it’s kind of hilarious because there’s no water. Until days like today, when the ground totally flips rain the bird. Everything around here is kind of built on a slant, and when the ground pulls it’s little PMS-y bitchfit, all of these low grounds fill in with all the water that has been so brutally rejected.

In fact, our neighborhood? It’s built on a slant as well. And it all centers around – you guessed it – the park. It’s a park of many faces and uses. It’s a utili-park. A Swiss Army park. A wake boarding park, at the moment.

Obviously, this storm is the big story on the news right now. To me, still, it just doesn’t seem like a heavy rain or anything to be concerned about. It’s been kind of mild-to-moderate for a day or two now, though, and there’s just nowhere for the water to go. So there are a lot of flooded streets. Phil and I were out earlier today on a top secret appointment for the secret plot, and just like I would continually be shocked by DC drivers in the snow, Arizona drivers in the rain made it difficult to pick my jaw up off the floorboards. You know, hitting puddles at full speed with no idea how deep they are, acting like their SUV are about to Inspector Gadget themselves into boats, and just general idiocy.

In fact, one of the lead stories on the news in times like this is exactly that idiocy. Really, about not being an idiot. And how much it is going to suck for you if you’re an idiot.  Specifically, how painful it is going to be on your wallet if you ignore warnings and signs and decide your XTerra is totally up for driving through a flooded street. Are you familiar with Sheriff Joe (full disclosure, he’s totally one of my heroes)? Well, Sheriff Joe wants you to know that if you are an idiot and you drive through a flooded street and you have to be rescued, you best just open up your wallet and empty it into your rescuers hands, because you will be paying for said rescue. A minimum of $4000. I think it should be called the “WHY AM I SUCH AN IDIOT?” tax.

In summation?