Why I have tile floors in my apartment

Before I begin, I wanted to let you know that the attached document is all the emails I’ve sent so far about being in Brazil. I just added a good number of people to the list, and a lot more since the very beginning. I’m flattered that people actually like reading the emails I send. So just for good measure, I figured I’d send out the whole novella. If you want to read it/ pass it on to your friends/ pass it on to your favorite publisher… great. If you don’t… great too.

My Thunderstorm Story:
Last Saturday evening, we had a thunderstorm. Now, when I say thunderstorm, I mean like a tropical downpour with all the fixins. Here’s what happened to me:

6:45pm: I was walking home from the grocery store when it started to sprinkle. It normally takes about 20 minutes to walk from the store to my apartment. I was like, “That’s okay, I’ve walked home in the rain before. It shouldn’t be too bad before I get home.” Ten minutes later, it was down pouring! Like seriously, raining cats and dogs. Thunder and lightning were happing all over the place, and it seemed like every street lamp that I passed lost power. So there I was, carrying tons of groceries, wearing flip-flops, hiking up the hills of Macaé on cobblestone streets, in the dark and pouring rain.
7:10pm: I finally made it home and dumped my bags in the kitchen. I decided to take a breather and sit on the couch and see what was on TV before I put everything away and showered.
7:30pm: The power went out for a minute and came back on. Then, the power went out and didn’t come right back on.
7:45pm: Figuring it might be a while before the restoration of electricity, I commenced putting my groceries away by flashlight. The entire neighborhood was out of power. I still hadn’t eaten dinner, but now the microwave and stove wouldn’t work. It was warm… and extremely muggy… as you might imagine, and I didn’t have air conditioning. So, I had bread and butter and cheese for dinner, opened the porch door to let a breeze (and a flock of mosquitoes) in the house, and read a book by flashlight. It would have been more fun if I had someone to hang out with, but I was home alone. It would have been more romantic if I had a bottle of red wine, but I didn’t (and nobody to drink it with). And it would have been less itchy if the mosquitoes weren’t coming in for the free buffet.
9:00pm: I went into my room to get something. I don’t remember what it was, but when I entered my room, I thought to myself, “Why is there a puddle on my floor? What is going on?” Using my flashlight, I figured out that the water was pouring in through the poorly sealed hole in the exterior wall for the air-conditioner. Usually in the US, they are mounted in windows. Here, they just cut a hole in the wall… I mean, why not, right? It was then when I realized why my entire apartment has tiled floors instead of cozy carpet or classy hardwood floors- holes in the wall that let rain come in… sweet.
9:15pm: I finished removing all my valuables from my dresser (that was soaking wet) and the floor and from path of the river coming through my wall. I returned to my book, the mosquitoes, and the joy of my skin sticking to our cheap, white leather sofa.
1:30am: The power finally came back on. I took a shower, cranked up the air-conditioning, applied Benadryl cream to my new mosquito bites, and went to sleep.