c-x-b 
little known pro tip: do not allow yourself to get caught in a thunderstorm on a motorcycle. follow me for more hashtag #lifeprotips
ok some 24 hours later I feel like I should elaborate. I went to an ice cream place way outside the city as a thinly-veiled excuse to check out some twisty hilly roads. and the trip out was great! zoom zoom! eat my dust, amazon delivery truck
as I am standing in line to get ice cream I check my phone and realize a few things:
- my phone is on like 40%?
- my helmet's audio (for GPS etc) is on 25%
- there is a severe thunderstorm watch for the whole area
- oh god. oh fuck
I am only slightly panicking as I head back the way I came, but with worse visibility and quickly-soaking clothes
and then the thunderstorm actually starts, and the sun is starting to get low at this point because I am (relatively) crawling along for fear of losing traction, and my boots are starting to really saturate with water. I try pulling over to a gas station to wait it out and the attendant shoos me away. I definitely didn't forget to downshift so I definitely didn't do a very ill-advised 4th gear roll-on to get back on the highway.
at this point there's enough rain coming down that my phone is starting to get phantom touches. this is bad for several reasons - it reduces battery life by taking the maps app out of "power saver" mode, and, you know, might cancel my navigation while I'm on the highway at speed!
thankfully(?) New Jersey still thinks shopping malls are cool. I end up barely-not-loitering in a food court for the longest, wettest 40 minutes of my life, watching a security guard take his job of "don't allow teenagers into the mall after 5pm" entirely too seriously
you would think I could charge my stuff at this point, but no. I can't find a working outlet and my phone is doing the thing where it shuts off the USB port to prevent catastrophic shorting anyway. I am mentally reliving the time I got my phone destroyed by a sudden rainstorm a few years ago. I am having A Bad Time.
eventually I overhear someone saying the rain stopped. by the time I get back to my bike it's a light drizzle but fuck it, I want to go home
and that should have been the last of this miserable journey BUT NO, NEW JERSEY ISN'T DONE WITH ME YET
because I am not taking a bridge into the city, oh no. for reasons unknown to both God and Man the GPS has routed me through the Holland Tunnel. I am too tired and wet to argue even though my brain suggests that tunnel + motorcycle = bad times.
and as I am pulling up to the tunnel, the Universe says "fuck you, here's a garbage truck, hope you weren't enjoying that cool night air :^)"
I manage to not be directly behind the truck but the tunnel is lovingly perfumed with eau de trash. by the time I finally get home the smell is stuck to me like glue. also stuck to me: the black dye used in the palms of my gloves.
in conclusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6VjPM5CeWs
Burn After Reading - What Did We Learn?
- check the forecast before heading off 50 miles upstate
- buy a battery pack
- maybe Sedici is just garbage and I should get new gloves
- check the weather again
- i'm pretty sure these boots were waterproof at some point
- gas stations are not your friend but malls are
- regrettably, QuadLock has a point with that stupid phone poncho thing
- did you check the fucking weather