Forecasting 100% Chance of Rain

For the second consecutive day, the weather people--those exalted prophets of precipitation, soothsayers of sunshine, clairvoyants of cloudiness, etc.--have gambled and won.  They have actually predicted with one hundred percent certainty that it will rain, and they have been right.  I know they really don't care how accurate their forecasts have been over time, but I, for one, salute them.  As I sit in my little office on the second floor, I can hear the steady drumming of drops, and the water that plops on the heavy clay tile that tops our villa here.  I'm heading downstairs to rustle up a cup of joe to return some warmth to my chilled system.

I did eventually make it back up with my cup, but had a list of rainy day tasks, the kind you put off because you'd rather be out riding, walking or whatever.  As you might imagine, these tasks are enough to bore me to tears, but somehow adding my teardrops to all those raindrops outside just doesn't happen.

Here's a good example.  The flood of documents that begin to arrive after the New Year herald the arrival of tax season for me.  I usually sit down with all of that, harboring the false hope that I may somehow have overpaid my taxes like I did when I was very young (a teenager) paying no taxes at all.  Back then, doing my taxes amounted to counting up how much was withheld and arriving at a total of all the dough I'd be receiving.  It never happens that way anymore, except in years with unusually high deductions (like when buying a house and paying points on your mortgage at the start of its term).

So these days I do the taxes to the point where I determine how large a check I have to write to Uncle Sam and put it all away until the final deadline for payment of those taxes.  Then, one rainy day in April I fish it out, check my work and file.  Around that same time, I put away in a file box my detail for the transactions from four years ago, to destroy the next time they offer free paper shredding in my county.

All of that means that the 100% chance of rain guys caused me to file early this year and pay my taxes almost two weeks early.  I would have said there was a 50/50 chance I'd file on the very last day, since our spring time "never" has a 100% chance of rain.