To the man in flip flops who pushed my car out of a pond in College Park

During an afternoon storm in College Park the road filled and my car stalled in the middle of a puddle that had become a pond. A man in flip flops waded out and pushed it to the curb by himself, standing in water up to his knees. He waved away my thanks and said he lived on the corner anyway. The storm stopped five minutes later, which felt rude. I stood there another ten minutes, dripping, deciding what to say. I said, thank you. He said, it is just water.