How To Make It Rain

I have a No-Fail way to make it rain, even in the sunny south. This technique has been tried in every state from Florida to drought-ridden central Texas. It always works.

I’m trusting you to not use these powers for evil.

You will need:

– a load of freshly washed towels that won’t dry in the dryer
– a laundry line
– wooden clothes hangers that aren’t meant to be left out in the rain
– a sunny day with no clouds and the promise of no rain in the foreseeable future

Here’s what you do:

– Load the wet towels into a laundry basket. This means tracking down the laundry basket, stealing it back from whichever child was using it as a car/plane/secret hideout. Wash the crumbs out. Wash the jelly off. And dump fifty pounds of wet towels in.
– Run across the carpeted living room at Olympic speeds to keep water from dripping on the carpet. Try not to trip over toys, dogs, or small children.
– Place laundry basket on the covered porch. Check the sky. Verify that there are no clouds in the sky. Run to the front of the house to make sure there are no clouds planning a sneak attack. Double-check with any weather service you like.
– Pull laundry line across the yard.
– Give your first towel a good squeeze (it’s a drought, the lawn needs watering – right?), and make sure you use wooden clips. Plastic ones can survive the rain without going moldy but tend to crack if left outside for a few years. Wooden ones are better, they never crack, they just get moldy after one good soaking.
– Check the sky for clouds.
– After verifying that it is indeed a sunny day, proceed with the second towel.
– Hang all your towels. Pat them to make sure none of them have dried while you were hanging other towels. You never know, in Texas it only took twenty minutes for wet towels to dry outside in July. You could use that line space for your wet socks!
– Triple check the weather.
– Go inside, secure in the knowledge that you will finally have clean towels. Give yourself a cookie. Sit down to write. Listen to the thunder roll and the ocean attempt to take your house by air assault.

*Note* This will not work with any other laundry on the line, just wet towels. With some careful planning you will never need to water your garden. You will, however, need to go out in the rain to rescue the wet towels or it will keep raining indefinitely. I’m pretty sure that’s what I did wrong that one summer in Texas…