Random Acts of Dryness

One night a few summers back, I was having drinks with some friends at a miscellaneous Lincoln Park bar. The group supply of cigarettes ran out, so my friend Dave and I sprinted through the pouring rain to a gas station down the street. On our way back, we were standing at a corner getting soaked and waiting for the light to change when a car pulled up next to us. "Here, take this!" yelled the driver, thrusting a small gray umbrella through the passenger side window. Then he smiled, waved, and drove off. The spontaneity and kindness of the act left me speechless.

A few weeks later I paid it forward, handing the gray umbrella off to a lady and kid who were getting soaked to the skin in a surprise downpour. She was confused but grateful, and we had a brief Oprah moment before going our separate ways.

It was just a cheap little compact umbrella, and probably she threw it away when she got to whereever she was going, but to this day it's one of the best things anyone's ever given me.

*

Another rainy day, and I am getting drenched waiting for the bus. A taxi stops and the driver hollers for me to get in.

I shake my head. "I don't have any money," I tell him.

"Don't worry about it," he says, waving me into the cab.

When he drops me off, I dig through my bag and come up with a crumpled dollar bill and some loose change. I try to press them into his hand but he refuses. "You stay dry, sweetheart," he says and drives away.

*

In any big city there's an every-man-for-himself attitude that's hard to escape. But weather can serve as the great equalizer. When it's bad (and in Chicago, it is quite bad quite frequently) it sucks the same for everyone out in it. Sometimes this has the effect of making people a little kinder. The bus driver waits a few seconds longer for the person running down the street. The guy with the snowblower clears the sidewalk all the way down the block. And, every once in a while, a complete stranger offers shelter from the storm.