It's Derby Week!

Damn rain.

It's rained for 14 out of the last 15 days and it promises to rain more. This is sad because as one employee put it this morning, this is supposed to be the "happiest week of the year."

Come on! It's Derby Week.

This is the week where every Louisvillian should be skipping in the sunshine and drinking Strawberry Crush and amaretto. Where kittens frolic in poppy fields on the backs of unicorns. A week where work should be a place you check into for an eight hour nap. We should all be punching cops in bars at 4 a.m. and running around huffing paint thinner.

Instead this year, we've been met with depression, flooded basements, flooded streets and canceled events. (Most disappointing to me is the Todd Snider show tomorrow night which looks very tentative at this point.)

Even though the sun is supposed to shine bright on My Old Kentucky Home on Saturday, the infield of the Kentucky Derby is going to look like Aunt Mable's Beef Stew—kind of brown, vague and with hints green things here and there.

So how do we fight back against this rainy tyranny?

I say crank it up a notch. Refuse to play "The Game". Prove to the rest of America that the Kentucky Derby Festival, at least the week that remains, is not to be messed with.

Here are a few things I'll be doing to prove that the rain isn't the boss of me and that the Kentucky Derby still means something around here in this soggy bottomed village. Feel free to join me.

• Streak. Why wait to streak the Derby? Streak now. Streak Main Street. Streak the Chow Wagon. Streak the Kentucky Derby Post Position. Streak your office. Ditch those clothes and let your fun bits fly.
• Burn something. What would a party be without the one person who takes things a bit too far and sets fire to a couch or a roll of toilet paper? Get on it.
• Gamble on anything that walks. Morbidly obese dude gonna make the closing elevator doors? Five bucks says no. Number of times that the annoying 23 year old in your office says, "like" in a five minute conversation? I say 15. Number of strippers at PT's Showclub named Crystal (Krystal, Crystil, Cristal, Christeal are also acceptable)? How's eight sound?
• Gallon of Whiskey. Just buy one. See how far you can get into it and proceed to the nearest facility with bouncers. Test your new found strength.
• Fireworks in the office. Face it, it's too wet outside to enjoy all your 4th of July leftovers.
• Seersuckeritup! Run to your nearest thrift shop, elderly relatives closet or vagrant outpost. Buy anything you can find in seer sucker. Put it on, even if it doesn't fit—cut it off, sinch it, belt it—what ever it takes. Now wear it for the next 5 days. Sleep in it too, it looks better wrinkled.
• Pee outdoors. Who needs toilets? The rain will wash it all away.
• Burn something else. Once all the couches and toilet paper have gone up in smoke, find something else such as: paper towels, old wood, your buddy's hair. Nothing keeps a party going like a pyro.
• Challenge somebody. Doesn't matter what it's to. Corn dog eat off, pushing a Cadillac down Main Street (which I did this morning) or throwing stuff out your office window.

Don't give up. Get rowdy and tell the rain to suck it.