Be Careful What You Wish For

Summer is now upon us. We have to go through scorching hot and humid days again. How do we survive a sticky summer? Installing an air-conditioner in your home is a quick solution. Although many people would want to have an air-conditioned home, paying high electric bill every month is not an option. On the other hand, others think it is a necessary luxury.

As my husband would say “we have electric fans”, every time I mention air-conditioner. So if you can’t have cool air in your home, don’t fret because I have some frugal solutions for you. Take a cold shower several times a day, drink lots of cold water and keep wishing that it will rain. Rain here in the tropics, especially at night, is very refreshing and helps to cool the air a lot. For three days I was wishing for rain at night, not just any rain but a heavy rain. The sound of raindrops against the roof and the fresh cool air it would bring would be nice, I thought.

Last night my wish came true, there was a heavy rain all over town. Rain was pouring down hard continuously for hours which resulted to flooding in many areas. Our neighborhood was among the ones that got hit the hardest. We live in a low lying area and below sea level so it’s not unusual for our neighborhood to have floods occasionally. The floods are usually just in the streets and do not get inside our yard.

Last night was a bit different; even though the rain had already stopped we could still hear the sound of rushing water coming from the street then into our yard. The flood just kept rising every minute. My husband was monitoring the progress of the flood throughout the night and saw that some of the houses that were on lower ground had already been flooded. He knew that we would be next. Then he hurriedly woke me and my son up. We needed to move our furniture and appliances to a higher area of the house or they would have been damaged by floodwater. So in the middle of the night, my husband, son and I moved all our things including: the heavy fridge, entertainment center, etc. to the second level of our house. It was a lot of work but we thought we did the right thing and we were able to sleep soundly for the rest of the night.

In the morning, after we finished cleaning up the mess, we moved our things back to where they belong. It was a lot of work with lots of heavy lifting, but we saved our stuff from being damaged. We were exhausted but also realized that we learned how to react positively in a calamity.     

So what do you think is the moral lesson of the story? Stay calm when there is a calamity, be content with what you have or be careful what you wish for?