If it rains, it pours, and you might be in Pittsburgh. Climatezone.com says it rains or snows, on average, 153 days a year here and if you Google the amount of sunny days in Pittsburgh, the result is 59 days. That’s right, 59 days. While Pittsburgh Post-Gazette journalist Brett Yasko says the number is closer to 145, the frenzied reaction University of Pittsburgh students have when the sun comes out tells a different story. Seriously, go on Instagram on a sunny day and see the campus act like they’ve just come out of 30 days of night like Alaskans do: “Looking fine today Cathy! #nofilter #sosunny #h2p” over and over again. Yet, just like a Hallmark card would tell you, life is about learning how to dance in the rain, and not all parts of it are bad. In fact, there are a few positively sunny sides of the usually dreary Pittsburgh weather:
1. It washes away the city grime: That throw up on Oakland Avenue wasn’t going to clean itself up. The rain is the only thing that cleans the sidewalks off and makes our little bubble of a campus look like a respectable part of the city. The rain comes, and the cigarette butts look like tadpoles as they swim down to the gutters in the Pittsburgh flood. Awhhh spring cleaning, isn’t it delightful?
2. It’s the perfect excuse to skip class: You needed a reason to skip class, anyway. Some people love falling asleep to the sound of rain. I love waking up to it. It means I can just go back to sleep. Go to class in the rain? Preposterous. I have a weak immune system. I’ll get sick. A rainy day is a day off.
3. The sounds: Whether you live on the first floor or the twenty-first floor, you can hear what goes on outside. We are a loud campus. Eventually, one not only gets used to the sounds of the city, but even a little bit fond of them. However, the sounds of screaming groups of muscle heads, drunk “best girlfriends for life,” or whatever campus group is trying to get you to vote for them, buy their whatever, or at least acknowledge they exist—not so much. The rain drives these groups away from beneath your windows or drowns out the ones who continue to brave the weather. I will take the sounds of buses below splashing through puddles on wet concrete over the chanting of a fraternity’s spring pledge class any day.
4. You get to dress like you live on the side of Forbes: The drowned rat look will never fade away. In regards to rain boots, I hate them. They aren’t comfortable, and they aren’t exactly killing it in the style department. Yet, they are necessary, and they are a part of the rainy-day-bumming-it ensemble. No one has to look good when it rains. The universe is out to ruin any sort of blow-out or straightened hair-do and even water-proof mascara gets pushed to its limit. Put a hat on and an indifferent facial expression.
5. Romantic kisses in the rain: Wait. Nope. Just kidding. Nothing is romantic in college.
Rain or shine, I love Pittsburgh and would take this weird little city over the tropics any day of the week. We must simply acknowledge the sunny parts of our overcast city and move on with our days happily. They say after the rain comes a rainbow, and then come the Instagram photos—oh well.
Here comes the sun,
Danielle Fox
Picture link: http://corideroza.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/beautiful-rainy-pittsburgh-300×199.jpg?w=551
Post-Gazette article: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/the-next-page-on-the-sunny-side-of-the-street-466449/