they can't stand the rain

Nashville suffered through a gloomy, rainy day today. The worst thing about the weather isn't so much the weather itself, but the poor driving of Nashvillians when faced with any inclement weather whatsoever. Instead of taking more precautions, people here decide "hey, there are no rules!" and begin taking more chances. Put poor decision-making together with bald tires, poor drainage, and easily-saturated limestone soil, and it's a recipe for disaster.

The worst such incident I ever saw happened during the surprise blizzard of early 2004, when I witnessed a guy back across four lanes' worth of snow and ice on Nolensville Road. But today's behavior was uniformly bad: pulling out in front of traffic, sudden stops, running lights even later than people here normally run lights. I even sat for five minutes at 7th Avenue North and Broadway because someone up at the corner had parked in the street. In the middle of the day. Not conked out, not wrecked or disabled and seeking help, not waiting to make a quick passenger pickup. Parked.

But the most strange thing I saw today wasn't a bizarre driving incident. It was a man sitting on the road on Scott Avenue. He wasn't on the shoulder, he was sitting on the street itself, with no raingear save for the plastic grocery bag upon which he was seated.

I had thought that the randomly-materializing rooster who lives up the street and the dogs who ride the tractor were pretty weird. But right now, they feel like part of the comforts of home. I'm glad to be back inside, and I'm not going out again tonight. No sirree.

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WoW Ret Paladin followup (non-WoW audience can stop reading here): I discovered the magic ret paladin formula last night. Seal of Command -> judge -> Crusader Strike -> repeat last two steps ad infinitum. I should have known that if it was something a ret paladin could manage, it couldn't be brain surgery.