In honor of some late spring rain here in the Southland...
When someone washes his car and then it rains he dejectedly feels as though the weather was conspiring against him, as though clouds have some sentience and they get their jollies over thwarting a clean car.
However, even granting that clouds really are out to get us in this modest way, the logic breaks down. Out of the millions of cars just here in Southern California alone it stands to reason that at least one car is washed every day of the year (and realistically it's at least thousands per day), but it does not rain every day. Even discounting the days when there's no clouds (apparently these sentient clouds cannot will themselves into appearing in the sky), there's plenty of cloudy days when it does not rain on freshly washed cars.
Of course, it might be that the clouds are smarter than us.
Perhaps it's that the clouds don't want us to think we can manipulate the situation. If it rained every time a car was washed (or maybe every time a certain number in a given area were clean) we could coordinate our washing efforts and ensure there's never a drought.
Nature's not going to let us have it that easy.
When someone washes his car and then it rains he dejectedly feels as though the weather was conspiring against him, as though clouds have some sentience and they get their jollies over thwarting a clean car.
However, even granting that clouds really are out to get us in this modest way, the logic breaks down. Out of the millions of cars just here in Southern California alone it stands to reason that at least one car is washed every day of the year (and realistically it's at least thousands per day), but it does not rain every day. Even discounting the days when there's no clouds (apparently these sentient clouds cannot will themselves into appearing in the sky), there's plenty of cloudy days when it does not rain on freshly washed cars.
Of course, it might be that the clouds are smarter than us.
Perhaps it's that the clouds don't want us to think we can manipulate the situation. If it rained every time a car was washed (or maybe every time a certain number in a given area were clean) we could coordinate our washing efforts and ensure there's never a drought.
Nature's not going to let us have it that easy.
I would argue that Southern California is exempt from the laws of nature, in many ways. Rain is just one of them. ;-)
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