Rita!

Rita. I always knew that my nemesis would be named Rita. In my fantasies, I thought Rita would be a Haitian woman who refused to give me a refund after I bought a spoiled peach. In reality, Rita is a hurricane headed for Texas. Is it just me, or is this hurricane stuff getting a little old? It's a lot like a reality tv show; somebody shows it, people get interested, and suddenly it's on every night of the week. You turn on the TV and there's the hurricane on Regis and Kelly, trying to sell you its exercise tapes. The hurricane briefly dates Jennifer Aniston. And then, several months later, you open the paper to read, "Hurricane Rita Arrested for Smuggling Prescription Ear Drops Across Canadian Border". We're quite a while away from that and I'm already tired of your antics already, hurricane! The weather system just needs to get over itself.

This weekend would be a particularly bad one for a tropical storm to hit Austin. As I said yesterday, it's the Austin City Limits Festival. This weekend, not only could you get struck by lightning, but you could be hit before you've even opened your $8 beer. Even worse, the EMTs could pull your stretcher right next to Coldplay at the start of their set. Will this stop me? Of course not. I'm just going to pin a note to my shirt that reads, "Should the sky attempt to kill me, please station my dying body near the Heineken tent. I must go out on my own terms."

I just had an idea; Rita, I encourage you to do your worst. Not to the rest of the state of Texas or the city of Austin, just to my house. I pay for neither the mortgage nor the insurance, and you certainly won't catch me crying about lots of fancy, new stuff. I would recommend you start with the air conditioning or that toilet in the second bathroom, but really, it's up to you. Just sweep in, do your thing, and get lost. Some of us have more important affairs to attend to, such as smuggling prescription ear drops across the Canadian border.