Crappy Weather (South Florida Style)

It rained all day today. This is what we in South Florida refer to as "crappy weather."

Granted, my version of crappy weather is not your version of crappy weather. Crappy weather here, for the most part, is when it is either 55 degrees or lower, or if it rains a majority of the day. Oh, I can hear it now. Boo-freakin'-hoo.

Now before you get all "You people have no idea what bad weather is really like," I offer you two words:

Andrew and Wilma.

Andrew was Wilma's older, and much more vicious, brother. For those of you who have ever had your car sucked out of your garage (literally, not metaphorically), you have had just a small, small taste of what Andrew was like. Pretty much hell on Earth.

So spare me the "Oh yeah, you have it so rough" talk.

But today it has rained. All day. When we hear the dreaded news that there is a storm coming, we quickly scan through our mental calendars. It is not August, September, October or November. We breathe a sigh of relief. Then we just get annoyed.

And while we do need the rain, we in South Florida love our sunshine. Many of us have traveled miles and miles, continents even, to get this brand of sunshine.

So when it rains all day, we complain. We kvetch. We're over it.

We offer condolences to one another about the conditions.

"Have a good day, even with this icky rain."

Translation: Your day is shot, good luck with the rest of it.

There are few things as pitiful as being thisclose to the beach and not being able to be outside to enjoy it. If you grew up in Florida, you are programmed to retreat inside as soon as you see dark clouds. Oh, that cloud looks remotely gray? Run for it. Heat lightning? No such thing. We do not categorize our lightning. That is Lightning. Duck and cover. Everyone knows someone's sister/brother/uncle/aunt was struck by lightning and they were only walking to their mailbox. (The "mailbox" part really freaks people out. Therefore, Floridians are convinced that every single person who has been struck by lightning was most assuredly just walking to their mailbox.)

You didn't think Florida had a lot of lightning? Tampa is the lightning capital of the world. Really. Good light shows there. Every night. And they're free.

So yes, we complain when it is "just" raining outside. But for us, an entire day of rain... is like the sighting of a unicorn. Except not that fun and special.

A lot of people moved to South Florida (and Florida in general) because of the depressing winter weather. Everything is gray. The sun takes a permanent vacation. Vitamin D levels are low. Time to break out the light boxes. Moving to Florida is a respite from the seasonal affective disorder (and yes, it is a very real thing. The acronym SAD is so perfect). So when we don't get our sunshine, we get crabby. It almost becomes like this inalienable right. We have the right to bear arms, and we have the right to bare arms.

When Floridians read about someone climbing Mount Everest, it's not the treacherous climbing, the height, or even the oxygen depletion that really gets us about the whole thing. It's that it's too damn cold! But then we read that there's sunshine at the top. And then we kind of get it. We'd do anything for sunshine.

So please forgive us when we call you in your -- 50 degree, igloo-esque weather and complain about how crappy the weather is in Florida. Since you can't reach through your phone and throttle us, rest assured that this summer you will get payback. We have nuclear-level heat. You know it's hot when the cicadas are too worn out to chirp. Yeah, we have bugs in the trees. Big ones.

Now that I think about it, the winter rain doesn't seem so bad anymore. Bring it.

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