Memories of Rain

Recently, the combination of late nights and wet roads evokes memories so immersive, I often find myself halfway home before realizing that it’s raining and I really should slow down. (The weather affects me more than I care to admit, I guess.) The memories I speak of all have one thing in common, that is, they are all memories of other late, rainy nights. This is my most recent one:
Around six years ago, I was driving a coworker to her house in Moriguchi (Osaka), after a company drink-up. She had passed out and my boss asked me to take her home.
It was raining pretty hard that night, and the tinted windows on my Citroen made for poor visibility out of the side and rear windows. As it was before strict DUI laws existed in Japan, I was driving kinda sloppy, mostly because the crappy driving conditions were annoying me. In fact, I was pondering so heavily on the fact that “god must hate me because it always rains on the weekend,” I almost failed to stop in time at a train crossing. By almost, I mean, you know the striped fiberglass bar that lowers when the train is coming? When I came to a complete stop, my windshield was bending it forward. The crossing bells were ringing and the train was sounding its horn, and the slow motion adrenalin rush kicked in as I threw the car in reverse and backed away from the tracks – just in time.
I think I just sat there for a while.
All I really remember is thinking, rain be damned, God Must Fucking Love Me.