Skip to main content

Road Trip 2011: Umbrellas

One of the things you can never quite account for when you travel is the weather at your destination. I'd been planning on going on this trip for a few months, so I had no way of predicting that it would rain. Check that; I couldn't have predicted that it would rain a whole freaking lot during my trip. Put it this way: one of the local news stations was throwing around the word "historic levels" to describe the rains and the subsequent flooding.

Now, I had checked the weather report before I left (I try to be responsible now and again), so I knew that I was in store for some rain. However, I like to travel light. I have never once taken an umbrella with me, so I figured that this was no time to start. Instead, I packed a light jacket that does a pretty good job of being impermeable and a baseball cap. Between those two items, I figured that I could survive a few drops of water.

For the most part, this plan worked out well. I saw a few summer storms, the kind that disappear after twenty minutes or so, but I stayed dry. Sadly, my luck would not hold.

By about the second day in Philadelphia, we were running into some serious water. The angels weren't just crying, they were flat out bawling their eyes out for hours on end. So, my friend and I both caved and bought a couple of cheap umbrellas at a local Hallmark. They were meant to be a temporary reprieve, and they handled that job just fine.

Somehow, though, my umbrella seemed to hold up a little better than my friend's. They were the exact same model, so maybe the manufacturing standards were a little lax. Maybe the black umbrellas were inherently better than the blue ones, or maybe I dealt with less wind resistance because I was shorter than my friend. I don't know why, but my umbrella held up better than my friend's. Not that I wished ill on him or anything, but I was glad that my umbrella was being the more awesome of the two.

Sadly, this was merely the fates playing with me. The next day, we stopped to have dinner at this place that preferred that people leave their umbrellas by the door. It made sense; you didn't want to get the floors wet if there going to be people walking around all over the place. It was somewhat tight quarters inside, as well. All in all, it seemed reasonable, so I neatly stood up my umbrella next to the pile .My friend, however, chose to keep his with him. He didn't want to risk someone walking off with his umbrella.

Now, remember, these were 5 dollar umbrellas. I figured no one would be silly enough to try to take them, so I took my chances. When we went to leave, though, I didn't see my umbrella. There were quite a few black umbrellas, but none of the ones on the ground looked like the one I had purchased. Confused, I spent several minutes combing through the pile of umbrellas. When I didn't spot it, I stood up and noticed one hanging from a hook that looked familiar. That definitely wasn't where I had left it, but I didn't see my umbrella anywhere else. I reasoned that someone else must have moved it.

After a few minutes of being outdoors, though, I quickly realized that this was not my trusty umbrella. This thing refused to stay upright. Remember how my umbrella was apparently the better of the two cheap ones we had purchased? No longer.I must've fought with the metal under wire on this umbrella every five minutes for a solid half hour or so. Ignoring the smug "told you so" look on my friend's face, I figured I'd just deal with it.

Unfortunately, this umbrella decided that it just wasn't worth the hassle. Rather than merely flipping inside out, the long metal "trunk" snapped in two. Yes, that's right. The most solid piece of metal on the entire umbrella decided to take its leave from this cruel, cruel world. I've seen damage to umbrellas before, but this was a first. That part of the umbrella has the fewest moving parts and it holds the fewest joints. It's meant to be the base, quite literally, so you expect it to hold itself together. Apparently, though, the universe has a wicked sense of humor.

It was at this point that I discovered two things: 1. five dollars is apparently not the bottom of the barrel when it comes to umbrellas, and 2. an umbrella actually fits quite nicely in a public trash can. Luckily, I had worn the jacket and cap that day, so I zipped up the jacket and donned the cap. They weren't ideal protection, but they sufficed.

We only saw heavy rain again on one other day on the trip, so I managed to get by. Still, every time the rain would start coming down, I'd think of the joker who walked off with my umbrella. Me being me, I chuckled. I just hoped he took good care of The Little Umbrella That Could.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

All Good Things ...

August 8, 2009. Over twelve years ago, I started blogging with this simple post . I didn't really have a great reason for starting the blog, other than I wanted to try it out. I wanted to try writing and putting it where others could read it. I don't know, it just seemed like a new adventure to try. Along the way, there have been all sorts of posts and all sorts of life events, but through it all, I kept writing. It just became a part of what I do at some point. It wasn't a matter of whether I was going to write a blog post, it was a matter of when. The Mild Wife has described it as a "writing practice," and it was one of the reasons why I kept writing. Honestly, it's good practice, and it gives me an opportunity to hone my craft. I'm no professional author, but we all have to write stuff in our everyday lives. Why not give yourself reps to get better at it? However, I think it's time for that practice to change. My weekly anecdotes sure kept me amused...

Dreams

Normally, I don't eat very many sweets. I tend to eat pretty generous portions, but I generally prefer savory food over sweet. In fact, I usually prefer things half as sweet when possible. My preference doesn't have anything to do with health reasons, it's just one of those things that I've always liked better. That said, I do inevitably eat dessert, particularly if I'm out with other people. My stance towards dessert is roughly equivalent to those who are social drinkers . If other people want to munch on something for dessert, I'm not about to cross my arms and refuse. That'd be just a tad gauche. So, I do eat some dessert. I even have a few standby favorites that I'll usually order when presented with them (brownies, creme brulee, and apple pie). But left to my own devices, I'm not about to go hunting for dessert. Apparently, this means that the sugar can really mess with my system under the right circumstances. As I've discovered, ...

New York City Trip (Day 1)

After my crappy flight , I was now in Newark, New Jersey at 7AM on a Friday morning. I had done a little bit of reading up, so I knew which bus I needed to take and where I was going to get off. All in all, getting into the city was surprisingly easy. I suppose speaking the language does make things simpler. Through no real planning of mine (a theme of the trip, at least on my part), I picked one of the later bus stops at which to get off, Grand Central. I actually just figured that getting off at Grand Central would give me options, and heck, it's called Grand Central. That just screamed "decent place to disembark that might be close to some stuff" to me, so that's where I got off. However, it also meant that we drove down 42 nd St to get to my bus stop. That just happens to be a big street, and it gave me a glimpse of Times Square as we drove by. My bus stop choice had accidentally given me a rough layout of the city. Go me. I had about 6 hours to kill...