Pitter Patter, Pitter Patter, CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK.

This morning I awoke to the gentle sound of rain pattering down on my tin roof. Ahhh, sigh, stretch, smile, roll over, yawn, rub my eyes. I looked out the open window at the back yard and smelled the wonderful smell of wet earth. I smiled some more, idly watched the ceiling fan spinning above me, and thought to myself, what a wonderful way to wake up gently.

Then a tree fell on the roof. Then an elephant. Next, a short series of bowling balls dropped from a low-flying airplane. A couch, a microwave, a 1982 VW bug, several wheelbarrows, a bicycle, a desk, a tractor, and a hippopotamus. I'd heard about Texas hail, but in three years this was the first time it's actually happened in front of my face. Or should I say, over my head? And oh, shit, my garden! And oh, shit, my CAR!! I leapt from my bed and ran to the front door. I fumbled with the lock and yanked the door open under the mistaken impression that I could, i don't know, maybe run out and save my car? Dingbat.

I stared outside at the rain and watched hailstones the size of cottonballs dump from the sky and ricochet off every available surface. They fell so hard it looked like somebody was shooting them from a machine gun, and strangely, I felt my alarm melt away. If my car was getting hammered it was just, as my very wise aunt would say, "yet another problem that I didn't cause and I can't fix." Instead, I just admired the view. My roomie joined me a minute later, and we stood there in the open door watching the hailstorm in stunned, delighted disbelief, shivering in our nighties at the blasts of cool air that cut through the humid warmth of a rainy Texas morning in the springtime.