Weather or Not

When you live in California, it's always another year of drought. No matter how many deluges of flooding rain you've waded through during the winter, the following summer you can't water your lawn because of draught.

Every weatherperson I could find on the radio, television, internet and newspaper yesterday predicted rain for Los Angeles today. A huge storm was moving in last night and lasting all through today and into tomorrow. I was ready. I went to the market. I didn't have my hair blown out. I bought my kids those dreaded new rain coats and gotten rid of the ones they'd grown out of three years ago. I wanted to wake up to the sound of raindrops falling into my swimming pool.

But I woke up to find my pool deck dry as dust. Not a drop had fallen in the night and I doubted there would be any rain today at all. And I had actually turned off my sprinklers for this. A person's lawn could go yellow waiting for a flood with misinformation from the weathergirl on channel 9.

They must do it to play psychological games with those of us who are thirsty in these draught-ridden states. Where do they get their information from anyway? Those silly maps they stand in front of? And those grey clouds outside are getting lighter every minute - the sun will probably pop out and I didn't have my hair blown out. I suppose my dopamine reward system has been deprived of its anticipated tweaking and my wish for a quiet afternoon reading in front of the fireplace with rain falling outside will have to be replaced by a hairdresser appointment.

Gigi Vorgan is the co-writer of iBrain, HarperCollins, 2008. For more information see http://www.drgarysmall.com.