Everyone tried to warn me, but the weather is winning.

Since I've been up here in Seattle, I've been handling the weather like a seasoned pro.  (Pun obviously intended.  What do you mean, 'What pun?'  Get it?  SEASONED!  As in seasons!  And how the weather changes in the seasons!  Gah, nevermind.)

I showed the Seattle summer who was boss.  "Psh, you call this 'hot'?  I just moved from the Valley, mofo, you don't *know* hot.  Living there is like living on the surface of the sun--you can take your silly 92 degrees and stuff it."

Even autumn was beautiful.  Brilliant.  The slow cool down and change of leaves (those are the things that grow on trees, my fellow Angelenos, that are *actually* not supposed to be brown all the time) and gentle progression of cloudy, softly raining days has been altogether pleasant, especially after not having an autumn for the past several years.

Ha ha!  You better strap yourself in for winter,  you wuss!

I was lulled into a false sense of security about my weather preparedness.

A couple days ago, one of my sweet fellow interns told me that this weekend, there would be a storm and asked if I was ready for it.  I scoffed.

"Of course I am!  I even went out and bought one of those weather-stick things."

"Weather-stick?  You mean an 'umbrella'?"

"Yes, of course.  Ha ha, whatever you people call them.  There's no need for these where I'm from, but I get it.  I'll play along."

"Right," Intern Friend said.  "Well, be careful.  It's supposed to get bad tonight."

I nodded.  I scoffed again.  Bad?  What, like, more rain?  Hellooo... I'm already a boss when it comes to this 'weather' thing.  I can handle it.  Me and my weather-stick.

So the drive from one job to another was okay.  Sure, it was raining.  Sure, it was darker outside than the inside of Simon Cowell's heart.  (Ew, I'm already judging myself for that, sorry.)  But it was fine, until out of the blue, weird frozen pebble things started pelting my car.

"WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS?!"  I screamed, more to my car than anyone.  It was cold.  It was like rocks.  It was not rain.  It continued to pummel my car.  Lightning hit somewhere close by.  Thunder rumbled along shortly afterwards.  You guys, this weather was happening.  I screamed and ran into the mall for my second job, convinced that there was a fifth horseman of the apocalypse and his name was Effing Weather, Fool and that I was going to die.  I was almost in tears when I got to my store.

"I almost died getting here," I told my coworker.  "There is some messed up weather going on outside right now.  It's like frozen rain, but not all pretty and fluffy like snow.  It's like frozen balls of death kinda rain and it tried to kill me."

"Oh, it's hailing?"  My coworker asked, obviously not as alarmed as she should have been.

"You mean 'hailing the combined fury of an angry Jesus and all the weather that ever existed'?  Oh, yes. That is what is happening outside right now.  Don't go outside.  Someone wise tried to warn me, but I didn't listen," I nearly sobbed and grabbed a customer by the shoulders.  "I didn't listen! Oh, for the love of God, don't take the weather for granted!  Don't go outside!  There is a storm out there and it is no freaking joke!"  The customer walked away shaking her head.  Whatever.  I warned her.

So that was my first intense experience with hail and quite the introduction to winter weather here in Seattle.  I have a sneaking suspicion it's going to be a very long winter.