That's why the lady's a tramp

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Dislike California / It's cold and it's damp...

For the past four or so days California has been just that: cold and damp. Wet, actually. Not that I need another reason to like it less. They tell me it never rains in southern California. Just last week I was in San Diego's Gaslamp District on a warm, sunny day and stopped to ask a woman for directions. She appeared to be a local - she was - so I just knew I'd get personable directions. Ha! Out came the smartphone and, you guessed it, Google maps. (Hell, I could've done that myself.) It was kind of her to stop and patiently try to find the answer but, damn, don't folks use their acquired intelligence and god-given senses anymore?

about as useful as having an umbrella in the desert

Anywho, in the course of waiting for the app to load and scroll we made small talk. She shared between drags on her cigarette, and this brings me to the point of the story, that her mother once visited her from the Midwest and bought them a couple of handy umbrellas. Handy, in her own mind, it seems. The woman joked that it so rarely rained in San Diego that it was about as useful as having an umbrella in the desert. 

That was exactly a week ago; And now parts of California are bracing for wrathful mudslides owing to the consecutive torrential downpours. Who's laughing now?