Excerpt from Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest (S. Leaver): Raindrops Keep Falling on Her head

 

Raindrops Keep Falling on Her Head

Once upon a time Mommy worked at NASA in Houston, Texas for a year. She liked her work, but she did not like the Houston climate. It rained a lot. In fact, it rained off and on nearly every day in the spring.

Being from California, Mommy was not used to that much rain. She figured out how to cope, however. She bought a small umbrella that folded up to fit inside her backpack. That way, if it rained, she could quickly pull out the umbrella, and if it did not rain, the umbrella would be out of the way in her backpack. This was especially helpful because Mommy walked back and forth from work. She liked walking, but she often got caught in sur­prise rainstorms.

One day it was not raining when Mommy left her house. In fact, it was pretty hot.

Mommy had a long walk. She lived more than two miles from NASA. When she walked, she thought a lot. She thought about work, about her family, about lots of things. So, she did not pay a lot of attention to what was going on around her. (That is probably why a lot of detail-oblivious people get called absent- minded.)

Mommy got pretty used to doing things automatically, with­out thinking, while she walked, so that she could think about the things that she wanted to. When the cars stopped moving, she sensed a red light and crossed the street, and when her skin felt wet, she sensed the rain and put up her umbrella. It all worked out pretty well.

On this day that I am talking about, though, she was already at NASA, and there had been no rain. Somewhere in her subcon­scious, she was thinking about how great it was to have a morn­ing without rain. Then, suddenly her skin felt wet, and her auto­matic reaction took over. Out came the umbrella and on Mommy walked.

Mommy felt pretty good about her quick reaction to the sud­den rain, until she noticed that people had stopped walking around the buildings and were looking at her strangely. That was when she realized that she was walking through a sprinkler with her umbrella up.

Conclusion:

Make sure it is raining before you put up your umbrella.



Reviewer comment about the book: Brilliant! It’s a great read not only because of the love that went into it, but also because the stories are pretty darned funny!




Read more posts about Shenan Leaver and his work HERE.

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