1, 2, 3

1
It wasn't the the rain that woke me up, I guess it was the loud thunder clap. The scientist talking heads said this would happen once the satellite failed to reach the International Space Station. Shouldn't it have been burned to a crisp on reentry? Or fried by the ionosphere, troposphere, or magnetosphere, some sphere that protects us from our own hubris? Weather satellite? Really?

We'll never know what was on that thing for sure but I can see the effects of it pouring down the gutters. "A chance of a light rainstorm, just like a spring storm!" Right, "It isn't wise to mess with Mother Nature!" isn't that the old Chiffon commercial motto? Guess the only thing to do right now is roll over and go back to sleep.

2
 Three days of this downpour has even the lying scientists worried now. The worry has etched itself all over their sleepless expressions. The news channel stopped taking commercial breaks yesterday evening to run wall to wall weather coverage. New Orleans is underwater, mudslides have destroyed half of California, New York's sewer systems are backing up onto the streets. Florida's coasts are blurring with the ocean while Texas is flooding with great gusto.

3
What I wouldn't give for an airboat. My cell phone plays the ominous Imperial March tune that signals me that my friend Sam is calling. Good guy, a bit jumpy but good.

 "Hola" I answer. "It's the end of the world!" greets me from the other end. "On Channel 19 they are talking about our electric plant having three feet of water inside if this keeps up another day. The diesel powered pumps will run out of fuel and the roads are gone!" his anxiety getting the best of him this time, I gently reminded Sam that it's never happened before and the National Guard was called out. I said they had the right equipment to handle floods and stuff like this.

This seemed to calm him down so I said to come on over if he's scared and we'd ride it out together. He came from the second level apartment up to mine and we hung out on the couch together He opened the door at the same time the lights flickered and then went black. Sam immediately freaked. Whining like a little girl would be a kind description, a complete and total cheerleader that gets hit by a passing bird during prom pictures would be more accurate.

 I pick him up and haul him to the couch and offer him one of, as far as I now know, a beer from the last remaining intact thirty packs that inhabit my refrigerator. I weighed my options carefully before offering but decided if the world was indeed ending as Sam has earlier surmised then I might as well have a beer with him. Since the electricity was now out, for who knows how long, I scrounged up a radio and sent Sam back down to his apartment to find batteries.

 He did and returned, and brought back, as far as I now know, the last remaining six packs of beer in existence. It took us a while trying to find a station to find out what was going on. Nothing like listening to the impending doom around you on a static filled station. We tried the aluminum foil antenna trick, I had Sam hold the antenna while extending his other arm out. There was just a lot of interference in the air so we settled on the only station we could barely hear that allowed us to sit on the couch and drink the slowly warming beer.