The Angry Seas, Part One

Chris closed his eyes, crossed his arms and sat further back in his chair. He listened to the sounds of the angry seas and the rain from a tropical storm beating down against the windows of the restaurant where he was with some of his friends. He shook his head at a random thought.

“Anyone know,” he asked as his friends kept discussing what he felt was an irrelevant issue in politics. “Anyone know where this storm came from?” His friends stopped for a second and then began talking again. “After all,” continued Chris, “the last I heard before I went to bed, was that the storm was going out to sea and wasn’t going to touch us.”
His friends stopped talking again and Chris opened his eyes to look at them. They didn’t seem to care that the weathermen were wrong, completely wrong. They knew weathermen hardly ever got their forecasting correct, but it didn’t seem to matter or faze them. Only Chris did and they were used to that.
To Chris, weather forecasting if it was what they called a science, should be exact. His friends went back to discussing the buffoon in the White House and Chris closed his eyes again not wanting to be drawn into something that would really get his blood boiling. The weather was enough. He didn’t need to add anything to that. It became obvious to him after a few seconds of listening to the battering rain and the sounds of the high winds, that his friends weren’t going to humour him.
“You’re right,” he finally said opening his eyes and leaning forward to take a sip of his coffee, “You’re right. They can hardly ever get their forecasting correct. When they said it was going out to sea, I shouldn’t have built up my hopes.”
“Hopes of what?” asked his friend Stanley who always sat to Chris’ left. Regardless of where they were, he always sat on his left. Something that had been remarked on before, though no one knew if there was any significance to that. They didn’t think so. “What were you planning on doing today?” continued Stanley.
“Who? Me?” asked Chris, “nothing. I just like keeping my options open.”
“And one of your options was going for a walk along the beach at high tide?” asked Barry a friend he had since kindergarten, who it seemed popped up at times throughout Chris’ life, be it in this country or somewhere else around the globe. Chris didn’t reply. He knew his friend was trying hard to be both humorous and relevant, failing miserably at both. The last man of the foursome, Roger, kept talking about the buffoon in the White House and was on a roll and didn’t want to stop and therefore didn’t.
Joyce the waitress, came over and refilled their cups. She looked after them well for the simple reason because they tipped her well, very well. Her tips at the end of their Friday get togethers depended upon who did the tipping, because it ranged anywhere from 30% for Roger to 50% to Chris. It was Chris’ turn and so she spent a lot of time there, even stopping for a-moment to add her two cents to their conversation. They didn’t mind. She had done it for years and sometimes like that day, she made more sense than they did.
“Anyone can be a weatherman on TV,” she said making sure none of the coffee she poured spilled as it might impact the large tip she had already calculated.
“Says who?” asked Stanley and Chris smiled in response.
“Look at Steven Evans on channel 5. I went to school with him. He’s a local guy.”
That attracted everyone’s attention. Maybe Joyce was more than she made herself out to be. Barry repeated her assertion. “Yes,” Joyce explained, “he comes from down the road on the mainland. In fact, his mother still lives by herself on Plymouth Drive.” Joyce stature with the group suddenly doubled. She knew a celebrity.
“Where did he go to college to study meteorology?”
“He didn’t,” she replied emphatically.
“Then how did he get his job?” Barry was intrigued.
“I know for a fact he went to Technical School.”
“Technical School!” the four said simultaneously, with a note of dissatisfaction.
“Technical school?” repeated Chris for the second time. “What did he study there?”
“Animal science,” Joyce added before she walked away, her wrist beginning to ache and she was afraid that if she remained there, it might give out thereby putting her large expected tip in jeopardy. The four friends took turns looking at each other.
“What do you learn in animal science?” asked Stanley looking at Chris as if he would know the answer. After all, he was the most travelled of the four of them.
“I think that’s like a step down from vet school,” Replied Roger as if he knew, which he didn’t. Joyce returned after placing the coffee pot back in its holder. They posed the question to her. “Learn how to clean out a cat litter box,” she replied shrugging her shoulders. The four friends burst out in laughter. They thought her answer to be humorous.
“So tell me Joyce, how does someone who went to Technical School to learn how to clean out litter boxes become a prestigious weatherman?”
“Well his mother told me this. He was an intern at the station, a job his uncle got him and then one day the real weatherman got sick so he stood in. All he had to do was read what was written, that’s it.”
“That’s it?” repeated the four friends in shock.
“Oh my goodness!” added Roger, “even I could’ve done that. When’s the next animal science class?”
“You’re too old,” replied Stanley looking to Chris for support.
“We’re all too old,” Chris replied not noticing Stanley looking at him. They all nodded in agreement, though Joyce refrained in case it upset one of the group which in turn might directly affect her tip.
She had been taking care of this group of friends every Friday for the last few years and knew her limits perfectly well. Chris looked out of the window again at the lashing rain.
“Well, it never stopped you getting here, did it?” asked Roger who couldn’t care what the weather did, because he was living a life he had always dreamed of. “After all you walked here.” There was much truth in what he said, and Chris acknowledged that.
“You’re right you know. Good point.” Roger was well pleased with his new accolade. Joyce returned with the bill which she handed to Chris, and he took out of his credit card.
“It was the channel 5 weathermen my friend, who last evening on the 6 o’clock news called this.” Joyce added noting her exalted stature.
“It was?” the four friends asked simultaneously. They never watched channel Five.
“Yes, he said that he felt the storm was going to come more inland than the others, so out of all the other weathermen he was correct.”
The four friends looked at each other in amazement. “Fancy that. A man who went to college to learn how to empty a litter box being the only weatherman to call it correctly. I have to watch him from now on,” replied Stanley and then looked at Chris who was waiting for Joyce to return.
“You should,” Joyce replied handing Chris the paperwork.
Chris shook his head. “Lucky guess,” he said taking the paperwork and calculating the tip. Joyce already had and could’ve helped, but she decided to wait instead. The others agreed. “It’s like Nostradamus, they only tell you the ones he got right. Not the millions he got wrong.”
“Yes, that’s right,” everyone agreed.
“Just a lucky guess,” added Stanley now feeling very relevant.