Yağmur yağar.

"The rain is falling."

Today, after more than a month without liquid from above, the skies wept. In fact, they wept like a delusional sorority girl who didn't get pinned for the big Phi Kap luau as she two-fists pints of Ben & Jerry's Very Vanilla watching Jerry Maguire for the fourth time that day.

Of course, this development a mere day and a half after I used one of those nuclear-powered pressure hose thingies at the Do-It-Yerseff Car Warsh & Snak Shak. I think that in a former life I must have peeled the skin off of squalling infants for giggles.

Today, I was to have gone on a retreat with my coworkers to Brown County for some fun, relaxation and what I assume to be some good ol'fashioned brainstorming about our office and how we can be better, more efficient workers. I was, instead, eating rapidly chilling ramen (the "this was in the net and it started a'screamin' and we clubbed it to death" flavor) and studying for my French exam, which I finished a mere half-hour ago. Being an adult really really REALLY sucks it. If only they knew how much I wanted to go! When they called (from the parking lot, I assume) this morning to see if I could go, I was halfway out the door when I remembered: if you flunk out of school you won't have this job anyway. It was pitiful. I made myself a bowl of ice cream right then, at 8 AM, and returned to my French texts, which I loathed before but now also resented with the fire of a thousand suns.

My roommate has been hurling for the past two hours. There's nothing more pitiful than the sound of him barfing: it sounds so brutal. So I made him his favorite "make me OK" food, which is unset, warm liquid Jello. I mean, I don't fancy drinking warm raspberry-flavored horse-hoof, but far be it from me to pass judgement. It was all I could do this summer with the cicada swarm to not just grab one and cram it, whirring as they do, into my maw. As long as it isn't raw red meat or poultry, organ meat or mayonnaise, I will eat it. When I was a delegate with the Harvard Model United Nations (representing, of course, Turkey), I got the delegation's "Carnivore" award for eating Jamaican jerk-goat, cuttlefish, raw tuna steaks and something I later found out was a game-hen. I was excited about that one: I had thought it was a largish rodent. Reality can be so cruel.

But anyway, for those of you who don't know this by now (and anyone who has ever eaten with me knows this), I LOATHE mayonnaise. Invented by the French to disguise the taste of food that had gone slightly putrid, I find mayo and anything that is made with it to be my kryptonite.
What makes me sad, and more than passingly angry, is that most of the fast food in the US come beslobbered with the vile slime. This is what happens to me when I go to the Booger Fling (tm):

Me: Hi, surly fast-food employee! My, you look shiny today!
FFE: I had to clean the fat vat today. I have first-degree burns on places you couldn't dream of.
Me: That's an image that I will have to re-live during moments of intense pleasure.
FFE: Glad I could be of service.
Me: Speaking of service...
FFE: Oh yeah, do you want fries--or RINGS?--with that?
Me: I haven't ordered anything yet.
FFE: Oh, I am on Ritalin. Can't help it. What deep-fried or microwaved treat do you favor, good sir?
Me: I would like the spicy "chicken" sandwich please. And please, no mayonnaise.

* Like an old Western, the entire establishment stops their activities to watch to see if the drifter-badass is going to blow a hole through the cattle-rustler's no-good carcass. A frail woman near the register pauses with her Double Bypass Burger halfway masticated in her mouth; mixing with her jungle-red lipstick it falls on that fun paper that they cover the tray with to make it more sanitary. In that moment I am glad for those sheets.*

FFE: Uh, what?
Me: No mayo on a spicy chicken sandwich.
FFE: You can't do that.
Me: Yes I can! If it comes with mayo on it I will not pay for it!
FFE: *whispers* Well, what's going to hold the bread to the "chicken?"
Me: Well, maybe you could put ketsup on it.
FFE: *faints*

Summer is always a sad, sad time of year for me. Picnic, in American English, means "an opportunity to devour vast amounts of mayonnaise-drenched "salads", one after the other, each less savory than the last." And there I am, gorging on that one pasta salad that at least one merciful person brought that has Italian salad dressing on it.

Sigh. And no, if you are wondering, Miracle Whip is NOT acceptable, either. *pause as my gorge rises to my throat; it is quickly swallowed*

Anyway, I have Turkish homework and tomorrow just isn't going to be pretty.

Good night, Indiana.

Dom (Demir)