Here comes the rain again

I like the rain. It's relaxing to listen to the steady fall of water when trying to get to sleep. When I've run in races in the summer I've hoped for a light rain to keep me cool.

But rain and I have been at odds too. There are times when I tense up and worry when it rains. The ceiling in my old apartment developed some pretty serious leaks, including several in one spot. Eventually my landlord had someone come to repair it, but wouldn't you know that the rain started leaking through again? It was fixed a couple more times and finally took, but sure enough, leaks in other parts of the apartment appeared. This went on for well more than a year.

After the problem was fixed for good, it was still common for the sound of rain to provoke the tightening of my upper body and and intent listening for dripping water. That response--rain PTSD of a sort--even carried over to where I now live. I don't worry about it as much now, although last September's windstorm, which sheared plenty of shingles from the roof, revived old fears.

Worry about leaks extended to my previous car. Water would get in around the doors and sun roof. I thought such problems were behind me, but it would seem that may not be the case.

For now the rain gives me a new cause for concern. The past couple days have brought some decent rains. This morning I pressed the remote entry button to unlock my car but nothing happened. The car started fine, but when I arrived at work and turned it off, an in-car alarm sounded and lights on the dash flickered. This is without the key in the ignition. It wasn't displaying any signs of stopping.

I took it to my mechanic, who mentioned that this particular model is known for water getting into the dash at the windshield and around the air intake and pollen filter. (Hmm, my car did have a lot of condensation on the windshield while the one next to me in the parking lot at home had none.) He recommended taking the car to a dealership for repair and suggested that a recall might be out regarding this problem. Sure enough, a quick search online showed that this appears to be a common problem, although no recall exists.

I took it to a dealership near me so I could be at home while they tinkered. Of course I fretted about the expense and the aggravation of this happening with a recently purchased car that is not under warranty.

Here's the thing: the car would not replicate this aberrant behavior when the technicians looked at it. The good news is that whatever was wrong is no longer occurring, everything seemed to check out, AND I was not charged anything for their explorations into the problem. The bad news is that now any time we get sufficient rain I'm going to worry that this will crop up again. Indeed, blame it on the rain.