Rising Waters

Next time I hear that school got canceled just because it was raining, for cripes sake, I won’t think ‘pansies’. And I’ll stay home too.

This week’s floods created the need for some new road signs. We already have these, for the really stupid people:

Now we need a few of these, to keep safe those geese who have given up flying for interstate travel:


And for those lucky people with duck ponds in their driveways:


In other words, not all god's creatures were distressed by the floods. I wasn’t bothered until it took me an hour and a half to get home from three miles away. During that epic journey, I had plenty of time to figure out ways to redesign my Ford Escort into a more flood-friendly vehicle.

The first improvement would be an exhaust stack that would jam onto the tail pipe and run up the back of the car, above the waterline. With such an addition, that first puddle would have been a snap. As it was, we barely made it through, floating past three dead cars. Then the road got closed behind me. Two miles further on, I found the road closed in front of me, where three feet of water raged across, making me wish I still had a kayak.


At first, it looked likely that I was destined to spend the remainder of the rainstorm sitting in my car on the side of the road. But a small lane that looked a driveway was the way out, and my car forded the next water hole without all that sputtering. From there, the pavement rose on higher ground, leading me to think I was home free.

As I sat in my dead car in the next giant road lake, I came up with a design for some pontoons down the sides of the car, and a rudder/tiller that I could attach to the stern. Oarlocks could easily be attached to the roof, where the oars could remain stored until needed.

After some pushing and a bit of dripping, the car was game for the paddle home.

Ironically, my driveway in the swamp was the driest road I had traveled on that day.