Typhoon

Sod`s Law is back in full force.

I haven`t stopped asking about typhoons. During Typhoon Season, I drove my friends and colleagues mad with my "is it a typhoon yet?" enquiries. I would text them, I would email them: I would follow them around the staff room when they were trying to make coffee like an annoying toddler.

"Is it a typhoon yet?"
"No. It`s just windy."
"Is it a typhoon now?"
"No."
"What about now?"
"Still windy."
"What about last night?"
"Just wind."
"Tonight?"
"Wind."
"But it`s really windy."
"Yes. It is really windy. But it`s just really windy. It`s not a typhoon."

And, by the end of Typhoon Season, when I had still failed to witness a typhoon, I was having proper little tantrums.

"Is it a typhoon?"
"No."
"But wwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyy nooootttttttt?"

Because we don`t get typhoons in England - we don`t get anything exciting in England - and so earthquakes, typhoons and perhaps tidal waves and hurricanes are unbearably exotic to me, and confirm that I am abroad. Indeed, any violent, extreme Act of God from a God who rarely even notices that England exists -and, when he does, just covers it in a bit of snow - is therefore exciting, and in some strange way acts as a little gold sticker that proves I was here.

However, Typhoon Season came and went with no typhoons, and eventually - with much sulking - I stopped enthusiastically tugging at the back of shirts whenever there was a bit of rain, and muttering "Typhoon? Typhoon?" in my sleep every time the wind blew.

October has been a quiet month, and I`ve been stony broke: eeking out pasta sauce with stolen packets of ketchup, and nicking toilet rolls from MacDonalds and popping leftover bread rolls from the school canteen into my pockets. But this weekend was going to bring relief from that, in the form of an all expenses-paid trip on Friday as part of an International Festival (I am international, and so all I`m expected to do is turn up and be foreign and they`ll pay for everything: a little like an gaijin escort), a huge fancy dress Halloween party on Saturday, and shopping for winter clothes with my new pay cheque on Sunday. Everything had been planned down to the letter: costume, travel, exactly how long I could go without shopping for food because I`d be eating bar snacks, exactly how much longer I could go without doing my laundry or owning a decent jumper.

And what would you know: now the typhoon is coming.

Everything is cancelled. International Festival: cancelled. Halloween party: cancelled. Shopping: cancelled. Offer to buy me drinks and food: cancelled. All interest in me being foreign: cancelled. Imaginative and yet cute Halloween costume: cancelled. And, instead, I get to sit inside all weekend, hoping that my roof doesn`t blow off, unable to invite anybody round because they`re not allowed to go outside in case they get hit by debris and sticks and glass and whatever else gets flung around in a typhoon (I don`t know, obviously, because this is my first). I get to have no electricity, probably, and no hot food, and nobody to talk to, and I get to sit in stinky clothes and freeze to death. Which is extremely far from the weekend I had planned, and somewhat diminishes just how exciting Acts of God can be. Because this God is obviously not as exotic as I had hoped, and obviously just a killjoy and pain in the arse.

Of course, now that I have no interest in the typhoon, or in any kind of weather update, everybody I have ever met is contacting me to tell me it`s coming.

"Typhoon at the weekend."
"I know."
"There`s a big typhoon on Saturday."
"I know."
"Typhoon tomorrow."
"I know."
And then the killer:
"Maybe typhoon this weekend. Maybe not. But everything is cancelled anyway."

To which I can come to only the following conclusion: Acts of God abide by Sod`s Law just like anything else. And if this weekend is ruined, I asked for it.

Many many times.