Water, water, everywhere, and the roof of my Honda creaked under the sky's contemptuous barrage. The interior atmosphere of the car enriched itself with the miasma seeping from my damp clothing. The darkness broke with each indifferently passing vehicle; sharp lights set ablaze the windshield's varnish of bilious rain.

In those moments, I gauged precisely how much the object before me was failing to be a window. Driving would be suicide, but I couldn't just sit there suffocating in my Japanese-made submarine casket. Rick Rockford, Private Eye, needed to take action. With the determination of a man who knows that pluck is his last and only resource, I unhitched the door, slipped out, deftly opened my umbrella, and slammed the door shut behind me.

Except I had no umbrella.