It’s Not Raining Inside

The other morning I was standing in the foyer of our home looking out the door at the rain and humming to myself my own version of a childhood poem. 

The more it rains

(Tiddely-Pom)

The more it goes

(Tiddely-Pom)

The more it goes on raining

(Tiddely-Pom)

And nobody knows

(Tiddely-Pom)

How wet my toes

(Tiddely-Pom)

How wet my toes are growing

(Tiddely-Pom Tiddely-Pom Tiddely-Pom Tiddely-Pom)

I know very well that the original version was about snow, but we don’t get much in the way of snow where we live, just cold, wet, miserable rain.  I happen to like weather, all types of weather.  That is a useful taste to have particularly where we live when we can have winter, spring, summer, and fall, all in one week.  Mother doesn’t like weather.  She would like to live all year around at a perfect 72 mild and sunny degrees.

Mother came into the foyer, looked at me with that look of approaching storms, and said, “Alfred, don’t be silly.  It’s perfectly miserable out there.”

To which I replied, “Yes, Mother, it’s a cold, wet, rainy, miserable day, but considering the alternative, which is having no weather at all, I rather like it.  After all, it’s not raining inside.”

            “Well, I don’t like weather,” said Mother, “Give me sunshine and gentle breezes every day. Which reminds me Alfred, you looked a little stormy yourself when you came back from choir practice last night.  How did it go?”

            “Oh,” said I, “winter, spring, summer, fall, all rolled up in ball.  I don’t know what to think.  I like weather but I’m not so sure about the Choirmaster William Weaver.  Little Billy Beaver is just a little bossy.”

            “Now, Alfred,” said Mother, putting on her sunny best, “Just give him a little bit of time, after Choirmasters are supposed to direct the choir.”

            “I know, Mother,” but I’m not sure I can endure being bossed around every week by Billy Beaver.  For some reason I find him quite annoying.”

            Mother herself can be a little bossy and annoying.  I would never tell her that.  More than my life is worth!   

Mother said, “The problem with you Alfred is that you have spent much of your life bossing other people around and you just don’t like it when somebody else tells you what to do.  I have noticed, Alfred, that when I tell you what to do, you often find a way around it.”

            I recognized that we were approaching the Rocks of Charybdis and I immediately steered clear.  After all Mother does a pretty good imitation of Scylla all by herself.  The question was, just how to extricate myself gracefully.  Generally speaking, backing up, is a good thing to do when you might be caught between the whirlpool of  Charybdis and rock of Scylla .

            “Mother,” said I, “You might be right.  I’ll give it a few more weeks, and then we’ll see what happens.”

            Mother wasn’t one to let things easily pass and she replied, “Alfred!  It would help if, for a start, you stopped calling the Choirmaster ‘Billy Beaver!’”

“We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.”  (I Thessalonians 5:12)