I am sure it is a common feeling to walk out of work on your last day of the week and want to run away as quickly as possible.

That’s how my weekend started, though I wasn’t fleeing in an unhappy state. Rather, I was trying to make it from my building to the nearest Metro station during a torrential downpour. A string of severe thunderstorms rolled through the area just as it was time for me to leave, but I wasn’t about to stick around to wait them out.

After all, it’s just water right?

It was actually kind of fun to go splashing through the huge puddles that had formed along 4th Street and seeing the other boring adults walking along with their umbrellas. When I got to the Metro station, there were probably a hundred people congregated near the entrance waiting for the rain to stop. I had way more fun with my morning.

Sitting on the train with fully drenched clothes and shoes that felt like they were still underwater, I had a flashback to an incredibly similar situation four years ago.

I was in New York City, interviewing for a job at ABC News. My cousin, Lauren, was going to school in the city at the time so we met up for dinner. Another cousin (Lauren’s brother) happened to visit the same day, so after our meal at a really unique location we went out to have a drink with Shawn.

As we walked to his hotel, it started raining. It wasn’t drizzling, or misting, or some other term for a little bit of rain. It was pouring. It’s possible some old men were snoring. Neither of us had an umbrella, so she used my copy of The New York Times and I shielded my incredible fragile hairdo with the portfolio I had brought for the interview.

I’m not sure why we bothered. We arrived at the hotel in a soaked state that instantly made Shawn laugh. On our way out (I think to the Hard Rock Cafe), he insisted on buying us umbrellas.

As I explained to my coworkers this morning before sprinting from the building, I’m not usually a fan of umbrellas. I think my main issue is that when you arrive at your destination you are left with this wet stick you have to stash somewhere. Plus, I defy you to run through the rain and not have a good time.

I had a great time hanging out with my cousins in the city. It was a strangely neat experience to spend time with them so far from our usual encounters (their house, my house, our grandparents’ house). And of course, it was probably raining even harder when I had to leave to catch a train back to my friend’s house in New Jersey.

I faced that day the same situation as this morning — sometimes you have no choice but to just run. Never mind that I was wearing a suit and dress shoes, all of which were already thoroughly soaked. It was windy enough by that point that the umbrella was pretty much useless.

Google says it is a little less than a mile from the Hard Rock to Penn Station. That was enough time to get even more soaked than I ever dreamed possible, and to fill my shoes with water. A few minutes after boarding the train I took off my shoes and literally poured water out of each one. When the guy who punches your ticket came around, I handed him a slimy yellow mess that had once been my ticket. He just laughed and went right on to the next person.

I own two umbrellas now, but it’s the one Shawn bought me that stays in my car and goes wherever I go.