Remember when I wrote a post, and later an essay for the PS Reader, about how me and the kiddos got caught in the rain and we were jubilant and giddy and full of love for each other and the world at large?
That was a summer rain. It’s easy to love a summer rain. Just like its easy to love a high-maintenance woman when she’s in her early twenties, has an hourglass figure and knows how to have a good time.
Early winter rain, on the other hand, is about as easy to love as a high-maintenance woman in her early thirties with two rowdy kids, distinct harpie-like qualities, a penchant for sweatpants and an inability to stay up past 9pm.
(I don’t know ANYONE like that, by the way: just speculating.)
((Do other people use their blog posts as intricate fishing strategies to secure compliments from their husbands: “Harpie? You? Never! And you’ve STILL got your hourglass figure, even in sweatpants, baby!”)
Point is: its raining today, like the dickens. And having just endured a sopping, slippery walk to Seconda’s school, I would like to assert something:
STYLISH RAIN GEAR IS TOTALLY USELESS
Prior to having two children, I never wore rain gear. I just wore my regular threads and carried an umbrella to keep dry, like a civilized person. But two years ago, after Sec was born, I realized that what with the double stroller, screaming toddler and screaming newborn, leaking breasts and leaking diapers, there was no chance of me retaining any connections to hip or cool at all. So why NOT enjoy the convenience of staying dry? I asked my mother-in-law for a pair of rain boots and a raincoat for Christmas. But as I wasn’t yet ready to surrender all aspirations to attractiveness, I opted for some very attractive rain boots – with a Dutch landscape on them – and a really sweet kelly green Boden rain coat.
Here’s the problem. Though they are attractive, they are no more effective at keeping rain off of me than regular clothes.
The boots spring a leak after three uses. That's statistical. I have repaired them twice and every time, after three uses, they are back to letting the water right on in. When we went to California and I wore these rain boots in the five-day-long torrential down pour which was our vacation I ended up wearing a rice cakes bag under my rainboots to keep my feet dry. Can you imagine how low a woman has to sink to empty a package of rain cakes and use the bag as a sock???? Today, though, I solved the leak situation in a much more classy way. I smacked a large piece on silver duct tape right on the side of the boot.
Just in case you are thinking this is a great idea – ooh, what a smart way to save money in these lean times, rather than get a pair of galoshes just cover your normal shoes in duct tape -- let me hasten to add that this not only looks HORRENDOUS, it is totally ineffective. Duct tape is not waterproof. I’m not sure why I thought it was. But its not. For the record.
Then there is my coat. Boden uses the term “Rain Coat” very liberally, it seems. I’m not sure what about the coat makes it appropriate for wet weather, since the material doesn’t appear to have any water resistant qualities to it whatsoever. It does, however, have a hood. A very stylish, floppy hood. If I were you, I’d avoid hoods of the floppy variety when you select rain gear because with the slightest breeze, such a hood is likely to just flop off your head, making it one hundred percent useless.
So, what had I learned from my attempts at stylishness where rain gear is concerned?
GET A BIG UGLY YELLOW SLICKER AND GALOSHES.
The kind people wear on that TV show Deadliest Catch.
It may not be attractive but neither is a super-hot pair of rainboots with silver duct tape on them, a drenched trench coat and running mascara.
And one more thing:
Is there a reason that we have sent men to the moon and can find parking spaces via twitter but we have not yet invented a way for a person pushing a stroller to also hold an umbrella???????
A disgrace, I tell you! Let us no longer stand idly by while research dollars are poured into the cutest prints to put on kiddie rainboots and umbrellas which fold up into 1 inch long packages!!! Let us band together and demand a solution to the stroller-pushing-can’t-hold-an-umbrella problem!!! Vive la revolution!
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