Stuck in a South American Thunder Storm

You can't really tell, but I'm rain-soaked in this picture. Paper-towelling off in some neighborhood parilla(grill) in Buenos Aires.

I was riding my bike home from a friend’s house when it began drizzling. As long as I was riding under trees, I seemed ok; but then it began to rain a little harder. Big, fat, well-spaced drops; the kind of drops I’ve never experienced in California. The kind of drops that happen when the humidity in the air gets so heavy that it conspires to commit suicide by grouping together and plunging to its ‘death’ on the searing pavement below. Death never smelled so good. Well; that’s not true. Pig and cow death by parilla smells pretty damn good too.

Luckily I wasn’t wearing the thin blue cotton dress I’d considered, the one that goes transparent when wet. Luckily I’d put on workout shorts & a thick wifebeater tank. Still white, but not too white-teeshirt-contestant like.

I saw a place down the block to my left with nice lighting. I hoped it was a coffee shop; it was a parilla. I locked my bike up & ran through the drops. They weren’t open yet but directed me to a place down the street. I couldn’t understand much. I hopped back on my bike & rode through the rain, pulling up at the first place I saw, two people smoking in the doorway. Esta abierto? Si. I went to the bathroom & dried my arms & face with paper towels. I sat next to an open window, ordered a steak with creamed pumpkin & Quilmes, and listened to the thunder and car tires splashing through water, sucking the pavement.