Rain thought of in positive light

Everyone seems to hate the amount of rain that we have been having recently. Myself included. In fact, I'm going to do a rough estimate and say that 65 percent of the voiced complaints about how much the rain sucks have been compliments of mine. At any rate, I realized that my complaining about the rain was not going to make it go away, unless of course I complained a whole lot and with such authority that the rain just packed its bags and went running back to its real home in Seattle. But I'm too lazy to do that, so I should make the most of all the rain. Here is my list of what to do when Harrisonburg suddenly resembles a Costa Rican rain forest, sans poisonous frogs and nice, warm weather.

Start bottling the rain water and selling it for exorbitantly high prices to our drought-ridden neighbors in Charlotesville. You're probably thinking, "Wow, that's a great idea, and I bet the girl who came up with that idea is incredibly attractive and intelligent." All of this is true. But I already have been performing the said activity for months now so it would be futile for you to attempt to copy me. I just wanted to mention it so that everyone would appreciate the true maniacal genius that I am. I have accumulated over $5 million from selling water, which I currently am using to buy a palace and a cast of monkeys to perform an off-Broadway reindition of "Les Miserables." If you promise to strike up my aquiantinship and buy me Crystal Clear Pepsi — which I have been craving since 1995 — maybe you can stay in my palace too. I even could let you hang out with the monkeys, but I'm warning you, they are a bunch of French-speaking drama queens.

Nothing looks cooler than pretending to figure skate on wet leaves. Really, just bust out on the commons with your shiny leotard and a pound of makeup and start doing triple lutzes like there's no tomorrow. Why not bring a partner? I guarantee that if you do this everyonewill be envious.

Stop taking showers. Just walk around naked in the rain. What is a shower, anyway? Just a 15 minute waste of your day when you could be doing other wholesome activities, such as staring at the ceiling or playing Snood. Doing this also really would put JMU on the map. Aren't you tired of being ranked 15th and 25th for various other superlatives? Wouldn't you rather be ranked No. 1 for once, as in the No. 1 school where people don't take showers and instead choose to walk around naked in the rain? If your friends didn't want to visit before, you better believe they will now. That is, if your friends are sick perverts who like to see people walking to class naked in the rain.

Make the rain an excuse for having a fashion show of sorts. Now, you might be saying, "Hey Ms. Smarty Pants, didn't you just say that we should be naked?" Well, that I did. But you can use your umbrellas as your new personal statement. When I walk around on these rainy days, all I see is vast quantities of black umbrellas. Take this opportunity to fancy things up a bit. Put a bunch of rhinestones that say "disco umbrella" on your polyester friend who protects you from the rain and, if skating on wet leaves hasn't made you cool, this act will. Or better yet, add some water-friendly fashions like lace and velour to your umbrella and you will be the talk of the town.

Blame the rain for everything. Failed a test? Say the incessant pitter patter of drops of water drove you crazy and you couldn't concentrate. Caught cheating on your significant other? Explain that you couldn't see through all of the rain, and you really thought that Swedish model was your girlfriend or boyfriend. Can't make you car payments? You know the drill — blame it on the rain.

Who needs the sun anyway? Think of all of the negative things associated with the sun. Sun burn. Sun poison. Sun stroke. Ouch. And let's be honest — who wants to go to class when it's sunny? When it's sunny I just want to play some Ultimate Frisbee on the Quad. Also, if it's sunny, we have to start taking showers again and we can't walk around naked. What a drag.

Now let's look at the rain. A whole bunch of cheesy perfumes that the Gap puts out use rain or rain-like words to describe them. How great is that? Rain is up 100 cool points.

Ah, don't you feel better now about the fact that a storm cloud has been looming perpetually over our town for weeks after reading my great column? I know I sure as heck don't. I just wrote this column because it was raining outside and I had nothing better to do. To be honest, all of this rain has made me wonder why Seattleites don't just throw themselves off of cliffs like lemmings. I say that if it doesn't stop raining, pronto, we just move the whole campus to Tampa. Or we could sit here naked with our velour umbrellas and wet-leaf figure skaters. You decide.

Ashley Nimmo is a sophomore psychology major.