It’s first thing on a brisk October morning as I hurry into the office sleepy, foggy-headed and late.
I decide to take the lift.
But just as the doors are sliding closed behind me, someone I don’t know sneaks in behind.
Nightmare.
Cue the closed-mouth-smile and head-bob combo of acknowledgement. The lift starts its slow trundle skywards; seconds pass and the air becomes thick with the unsaid thing.
I will not bow to it, I think. I can take a taxi ride without saying: ‘How’s it been tonight, pal?’ so I am clearly immune to social pressure.
Don’t say it, Rebecca. Don’t say it.
“Chilly one today, isn’t it?”
Damn. Said it. A wash of shame, followed by a fear that I may never again have an original thought.
But it went down like… well, a storm.
Mr Lift Slipper began to immediately regale me with the tribulations of his commute (it was the first day he’d had to look out the scraper for the car) and just like that, the ice was broken.
Babet is no small talk storm
It’s an often-mocked stereotype that people in the UK are obsessed with the weather. But the truth is, we’ve every reason to be.
Right now, as I write this, Storm Babet is raging outside my window. Today held no awkward elevator interactions, as I was told not to risk coming into the office if I didn’t have to.
Trees in Baxter Park have been ripped from the ground, Brechin residents have been told to leave their homes, and across the region, bridges are shut.
Last night, families slept in gym halls and on community centre floors; power cuts saw the slow drain of batteries in phones and laptops, rendering work undoable, loved ones uncontactable.
Folk were stranded; waiting spouses, parents and pets paced the floors at home.
Roads were flooded, cars were damaged. Lives were, tragically, lost.
For some, by the time you’re reading this, the storm will be passing while for others the nightmare continues.
But it’ll be small talk fodder for weeks – from the minor dramas of drenched gardens and blown-over bins to the major news stories which I wish we hadn’t had to break.
Because as much as we like to poke fun at weather chat as being inconsequential, it’s not.
The weather has a huge impact on everyone, every single day.
Uncontrollable weather reminds us we’re human
Weather is one of the few remaining universal levellers, because it does not discriminate – it cannot be escaped, and it cannot be controlled.
That’s quite a feat in a world where almost everything can be curated, from your wardrobe to your dating profile to the contents of your fridge.
In a modern life which demands so much is planned in advance – meetings, weddings, holidays, even dinner for tonight – is there any wonder that we’re so preoccupied with the one thing which has the power to wipe out even our best laid plans?
Weather events are among the only phenomena, along with wars and pandemics, which give everybody one thing in common.
They cause, at best, a little indignity – whether that’s sweating through your shirt, or dripping like a drowned rat – and at worst, fatality, injury and grief.
And they force people into a state of patience, proximity and goodwill which normally falls by the wayside in the hubbub of everyday life.
So when it comes down to it, there’s nothing more human than lighting some candles, battening down the hatches, and waiting for the storm to pass.
Except maybe talking about it in the lift for the next three weeks.
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