On Monday, the weatherman reported that the entire week would have a 30% chance of rain. In Houston, when summer comes around, rain comes every single day, relentlessly boring down on us, destroying every decent day into a gloomy one.

So when the weatherman accounted to us his brilliant forecast, which included 30% for every single day of the week. According to him, “It might rain, but it might not”… a brilliant forecast indeed, one that showed his incredible skill in prediction.

That afternoon, instead of biking to school with a few friends, we arranged to carpool and go by car, due to the 30% chance of rain around four o’clock in the afternoon. It wasn’t until I stepped outside after school and noticed that it wasn’t raining.

Apparently 30% at four o’clock also meant 30% the rest of the day. So I settled down at home, getting ready for my swimming practice at six o’clock inside the nearby swimming natatorium.

Around five o’clock, the weatherman came back on the news, this time saying that he really thought there would be some showers this time, and that no, it wasn’t a joke, because there was a blip of rain coming towards us, hitting around six o’clock.

I put two and two together and made four: swimming practice at six, blip of rain at six. I thankfully sighed that it was only a blip, and decided to still go to swimming practice.

When I arrived, it was drizzling, and our coach didn’t care about the weather reports. “It’s fine. Let’s swim!” We all got into the water, some grumbling about suing for child abuse in horrible conditions.

Thirty minutes later, I looked out the window. It was a tempest: it seemed as if the entire area were now inside a dark white cloud. The nearest thing I could see was a tree, leaves blowing off, almost about to be pulled out of the soil itself.

An hour later, it continued. Every time I looked out that window, I didn’t see much: just the poor tree and the giant cloud.

Then our coach pulled us out of the water and told us that the swimming pool was grounded properly and there was nothing to worry about. When she said that, I smiled for some crazy reason.

What a wonderful world it is, that even in such hectic storms, I still swim. A wonderful world indeed.

Edit: The next day, school was cancelled, and parts of Houston received nearly a foot of rainfall in two days. We had state-mandated testing on that day, and it was cancelled. I’m not feeling that happy…