The Apple Weather App said light rain for the hour.

I looked out the window and it wasn’t raining, and I only had to go the two or so blocks to the Rite Aid. That morning the app had said it was raining so I took an umbrella to the Acme (round trip 20 minutes minus the time it took to shop) and it didn’t rain a drop.

So I decided no umbrella was required.

When I got outside, I realized that looks can be deceiving. Although I couldn’t see any rain from my window, there was, in fact, a very, very light rain falling, too light to even call it a drizzle. 

I figured I could tough it.

So I walked over to Rite Aid, and happily there was no one in line at the prescription counter ahead of me so I was in and out in no time.

But when I emerged into the gray, cloudy outside once again, I was dismayed to realize that what had been a very light rain, not even a drizzle, had now turned into a quite steady rain. Still light, but more than enough to drench me in the two or so blocks I needed to walk to get home.

So I started walking fast, trying to get under every possible overhanging roof or tree along the way that I could find, of which there were not many.

Still I was doing OK as I crossed the intersection at Christian Street, while giving the finger to the driver of the SUV who didn’t give me the right of way. I hate that intersection. And I hate SUVs. And drivers of SUVs.

Then I noticed that a fellow with an umbrella was testing to see if the rain had slowed down, and by golly I realized that it had.

So I slowed down accordingly for the final block of my walk, telling myself that if I had only waited a minute before emerging I could have avoided the worst of it.

But when I turned the corner, wouldn’t you know, the rain picked up again!

So I picked up my pace too.

Now as it happens, I have an Apple HomeKit enabled lock on my front door. Once I lock it and walk at least 200 yards away from my home, when I return, it will unlock automatically.

But the Rite Aid isn’t quite 200 yards away, so I knew I’d have to tell Siri to open the lock.

No problem, thought I.

In the previous release of the Apple Watch’s software, there had been a problem getting Siri to work reliably with its Raise to Speak feature, but that’s been fixed for the past couple months, and now Raise to Speak works very well.

All I needed to do was hold the Watch up near my mouth, and say “Open the Front Door” as I was running toward my house, and the door would be unlocked when I arrived. Sure beats having to dig around in my pants for the key and trying to get it into the keyhole when I’m in a hurry.

So that’s what I did.

Except when I reached my door, it was still locked.

Apparently while I was running, I hadn’t held my Watch steady enough near my mouth for Siri to “hear” my panicky cry for help.

So I tried again, as I was standing at the front door, and by this time the heavens had opened up and what had been a light rain was now a downpour.

But Siri wouldn’t respond. The problem was I had been holding the Watch up near my face all this time and I have it set so it’s not On all the time (to save battery life) and it had gone off. I needed to revive it so that Siri would hear my command. Not being in the mood for niceties, I just shook my damn arm until I saw the Watch light up, and then screamed, “Open the fucking Front Door dammit you rotten pile of junk!” Or something like that.

Anyway it worked.

But not before I had gotten completely drenched.

Isn’t modern technology wonderful?

(Just adding that had I had to fish in my pocket for the key and fiddle with it to get it in the lock to open the door, it probably would have taken just as long.)