I’m the sort of person who likes to follow a tradition to celebrate the inception of every season, whether it be fall, winter, spring or summer.

For summer in particular, I grab the Beach Boy’s “Endless Summer” album and shove it into my car stereo, where it stays until September. “Good, Good, Good,” “Don’t Worry Baby” “Surfin’ Safari.” There are simply no better songs to listen to during the warm weather, with the car windows rolled down and a mild breeze blowing into your face as your pale skin slowly develops a golden brown tan from the wondrous sun’s rays.

But so far, I’ve hardly touched my Beach Boys CD, and I fear I won’t be listening to it much for a while.

The reason is simple.

The Beach Boys aren’t meant to be played in the middle of a tropical monsoon which is exactly what Western Washington has been going through. Only a self-hating masochist could enjoy hearing the lyrics to “Catch a Wave” while his windshield wipers are on full blast so he can see five feet in front of him while driving down state Route 169.

Now, in all fairness, I’ve lived in this part of Washington my whole life, where there is no such thing as dirt, just mud, so I was practically bred in this kind of climate. I’ve also seemed to have been born with a natural inclination towards colder temperatures, which I chalk up to my Irish/British ancestry.

But the weather in Western Washington has gone past the point of ridiculous. There is only so many times I can wake up in the morning, go over to my window and peek through the shutters, only to see a torrential downpour that would have kept Noah another 40,000 days in the Ark.

It’s bad when people from other states ask why we don’t have a lot of water parks in Washington and the common reply I hear is “because we live in one,” and after spending two days here, they understand why.

Being a weatherman on this side of the Cascade Mountains has to be the most banal profession aside from being a tax lawyer. Unless, of course, they’re one of those self-hating masochists I mentioned earlier.

Case in point: Even as I (initially) write this, it is sunny outside, but I wouldn’t bet two cents against the possibility that it could rain two hours from now (it did). Yet, I’m willing to bet that by the time you actually read this, it will 70 degrees and cloudless. There’s no consistency, which explains why my raincoat is a permanent item in my car even in the summer, because “God only knows” when I’ll need it.

It’s like people who can’t quite decide what to wear, where to eat or whether they like their hair shorter or longer; Western Washington just can’t come to a conclusion on what sort of climate it wants to be, so it hits us with everything: rain, sun, snow and then perhaps have some hail while being half sunny half cloudy and all on the same day.

But mostly it’s just rain.

It’s like the eternally irritating “What about Bob?” acquaintance of yours that happens to know how to fix everything when it breaks at your house.

Inasmuch as I sigh and complain aloud as I drive to work in the rain, deep down inside, I know that I’d rather have too much rain than too much sun like Texas, which has been converted into a verifiable desert. Those who have to deal with potential flood-levels are excluded from this, of course, but after having worked the 105 degree summer days in 2009, when I was a loader at a Home Depot, I can say that getting drenched on a cloudy 40 degree day is nirvana comparatively speaking.

Yes, the rain is horrible, and it is ruining the introduction to our summer, but as Bill Cosby said, just when you think it can’t get any worse, it usually does.

We may hate the rain, but when the sun actually does come out adults can tend to our lawns and gardens while kids spray each other to death with super soakers without worrying about water shortages, and in the winter we’ll have enough electricity to put as many Christmas lights up on our house as Clark Griswald.

The saying the grass is greener on the other side doesn’t make sense to those of us who live in Western Washington, because it isn’t. Our problem is that when it should be sunny, it’s raining. A little sun couldn’t kill us.

As the Beach Boys crooned, “Wouldn’t it be nice.”

Reach TJ Martinell at tmartinell@maplevalleyreporter.com or 425-432-1209 ext. 5052.