Rain, ice and lack of sunlight. Oh, and bomb threats. And no, the heat isn't making me delirious - why do you ask?

It's been so hot for so long that it's starting to color everything. I feel wilted. Even the dogs look haggard. And let us not mention my landscaping. Not my ladyscaping - I'm talking about those dead plants in the yard that give off a very Morticia Addams feel.

Late this afternoon, I heard thunder. It made me giddy! And then? Then, it rained. I know this because I immediately ran to the window and watched fat drops run down the glass.

It made me think of my junior year of high school. That winter, we went 23 days without sunshine. It was one of those winters where we got snow Nov. 1 and everything stayed icy and decrepit until the end of March. Yay, Iowa!

But that February day when the sun finally came out? I was in accounting class when the sun broke through. Our teacher didn't have a firm handle on our class - her mind was elsewhere. It was an open secret that she was having an affair with the athletic director - the athletic director who had just been fired for embezzlement. And she was the accounting teacher. I don't think us kids in Accounting I: How to Balance the Checkbook You Might Someday Have were her top priority.

And so, when the sun broke through? We ran to the windows and laughed. The glass was steamy, thanks to the unpredictable-at-best HVAC system, but we rubbed it down with our sleeves and basked in the sun.

A few weeks later, we ran to the same windows to check out all of the squad cars and fire trucks that had surrounded our school. There had been a bomb threat, and the authorities were checking it out.

Notice that they were checking it out - not letting school out. Because this was 1992 and not 2012, they did not evacuate the building. No, instead, they locked down the school. Because, see, bomb threats? Were how degenerates got their girlfriends dismissed from school. Call in a bomb threat, school is dismissed early, and your girl is free to hang out with your lowlife self.

But the school administrators and the law nipped that in the bud. They outsmarted the scum, and locked a few hundred high schoolers - including the girlfriend in question - in a building that was purported to contain a bomb. Bwah ha!

It was a different time.