Friday, February 26, 2010

My Fair Lady, not so fair....



I love musicals.

So when packing for my six month long trip to Spain, I took some advice from My Fair Lady.

“The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.”

So then the deductive reasoning kicked in: Seville, where I live, is not a plain, therefore the rain probably won’t fall there.

Wrong.

It has been raining here like you wouldn’t believe. It’s the kind of rain that kills umbrellas and soaks you through until your bones beg for mercy. It’s the kind of rain that made me wish I had a triple layer, steel toed boot, rain suit onesie just to walk to class.

It the kind of rain that makes me miss the snow. Yes, it’s that bad.

You see, there were two things that I overlooked in this phrase made popular by Audrey Hepburn.

1.) Key word: MAINLY. Mainly can mean a lot of things. According to Webster’s Dictionary it means: for the most part. Okay, so it’s not exclusive. It stays mainly in the plain, but it falls elsewhere as well. Elsewhere, meaning Seville. As well, meaning constantly.

2.) And I may have slightly overlooked the necessity for rhyming and musical resonance. Perhaps the only reason this saying exists is because Spain, main and plain all rhyme. In fact, I will go as far to say that there is no scientific backing of this saying and that it’s sole purpose was to be written as a musical line for the sonorous quality.

So, perhaps I should not have taken life advice from a musical. I mean, how seriously can I take people that break out in song and dance in unison while using jazz hands and the box step?

But for argument’s sake, I have a new line to add to My Fair Lady.

The rain in Spain is insane, it will make you complain, your socks and shoes will retain, the contents of the city’s water main.

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