Curse the weather

Glorious piece of conversation overheard on the bus today.

The speaker was a young woman clearly not inclined to make any concessions to conventional standards of good language.

‘[Adjective drawn from a verb representing the act of sexual reproduction] [noun denoting a place of punishment in the afterlife]! Why did I put my nice new £120 boots on today? The rain’s just ruining them! I should have come out in my Wellies...’

Don’t you love it? I’ve always thought that complaining about the weather was one of the most completely pointless activities imaginable, even though we all enjoy indulging in it. It's like moaning about a fundamental law.

‘What can they have been thinking of? The ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter isn’t a rational number. Who works that way?’

‘I know, it’s appalling. And the atomic number of Uranium is 92. It isn’t even prime!’

But complaining that the weather has spoiled your nice new boots takes the ticket.

I tried to conjure up an image of possible responses. Dark clouds rolling sulkily away and slinking off in embarrassment to rain on someone else? An offer from the meteorological office to pay for a new pair of boots? Or at least a decree from the Pope ruling such behaviour an intolerable breach of divine subordination of nature to man, or in this case woman?

I found myself smiling as I listened to the outburst. Especially as the sun had come out. A refreshing change: all those grey skies, all that drenching rain were beginning to drive me crazy.

After all, it’s nearly May, for God’s sake.

Why does this keep happening to me?