Two weeks ago I wrote about my ability to make it rain. (Click here for scholarly review.) It turns out that, although it rains on me a lot, it might not be because of me. I’m kind of disappointed about that. It was fun to feel like Master of Something, even if it was being rained out.

Last time I went camping it rained, in spite of the weatherman’s prediction of mild. It rained the time before that too. Last weekend’s huge thunderstorm? Yep—I was camping. Forecast: slight chance of rain Saturday afternoon, slightly bigger chance Sunday afternoon. Reality: 24-hour deluge with relentless thunder, lightning and flash flooding. I felt gifted.

So I was thinking, three times in a row is more than a coincidence. But I had loaned my tent out to a friend and he got rained on too. Wait a minute… I have some training in scientific method, and I want to run some tests. Anyone want to borrow my tent?

I thought I could make it rain by playing softball too. But I learned what many people already know: it’s far more likely to rain whenever you plan an event in advance which involves more then eight people. The Omaha Softball Association knows this—that’s why you have to pay for your all your games in advance, even if you don’t get to play them.

I think American Indians learned it too. It wasn’t their Rain Dance that made it rain. It was that they put the word out ahead of time and twenty people came out to watch and see if it worked. I tested that theory. I went in my back yard under heavy gray clouds and danced around. It actually cleared up, although my neighbor Gary shot his garden hose at me.

There are a lot of variables to be considered, obviously. Maybe it really is the rain dance, and I just danced it wrong. I’m Scottish, after all—we do every kind of dance wrong. (Except of course for traditional Scottish dancing, which is limited pretty much to just hopping straight up and down. Anything more than that requires a visit to the chiropractor. Even my chiropractor is Scottish. He knows a good thing. His name is McCracken.)

It has rained for four straight days. I haven’t danced at all, and if there were any outdoor parties, I wasn’t invited. But wait—I just remembered, I left my tent set up in the garage to dry out! Duh. Sorry guys. It’ll be sunny tomorrow.

The Omaha Softball Association bet it right. Just to cover his bases (ahem!) God rained out our first four games. Normally he’d spread those out over the season, I would think. But we weren’t a team dripping in testosterone, and he probably figured we would get discouraged and end up skipping the games altogether, going instead straight for the bar, and he’d miss his chance to smite us.

Smart, that God.