Broken umbrellas.
I should just leave it at that, really I should. But for the sake of elaboration I’ll do just that.
You see them abandoned on street corners, classrooms, under park benches, and on busses. Our society has a broken umbrella epidemic. They are plaguing our streets.
For a while I tried not carrying an umbrella… but that ‘while’ ended 3 minutes later when I realized I live in Vancouver and not having an umbrella is cause for torrential downpour and suffering.
I remember one of my favourite umbrellas I stole from my grade 8 locker partner during locker-clean-up day. She didn’t show up, left her umbrella, so I took it. It was lime green and lasted me all throughout high school and 4 years of university.
During that whole time my family has had other umbrellas (the lime green one is much too small to share) that have come and go. We had a red one that snapped literally in half in the wind. We had a big huge yellow one that would flip inside out in wind and not flip back. There were at least 5 others that just had various metal clippings snap or break or twist or melt. Yes, I had a melting umbrella. No, I didn’t put it in front of fire.
Why are umbrellas made so flimsily? They’re not cheap to buy either; the cheapest one I’ve seen from Winners was $7.99 for a mini travel sized umbrella. Can’t someone invest in good materials but sell it for an affordable amount? This isn’t a winter jacket type of investment, this is an umbrella that I’ll leave on the floor, stick in baskets, jam into my bag, and shake like crazy when wet.
When I went to Hong Kong in 2009 I bought one on a rainy day impromptu for $15HKD. That ends up converting to about $3CDN. A deal! It actually lasted until this very rainy month when it died.
I’ve fixed my fair share of umbrellas too, in the dire hope that maybe my dexterity can make one last a few more months before setting out on the hunt again.
I don’t think I’m am umbrella abuser, I take as good care of an umbrella as I think most people do… I try not to wrap it back up when wet, I let them air out before closing them, I don’t open or close them violently…
Right now my household has two umbrellas. You’d think that would be plenty. The issue is that both the umbrellas are totally unusable. Why do I have two broken umbrellas! Why are they still around?
I don’t really know. It’s almost like I can’t bear to give them up until I have found a suitable replacement. So I’m doing just that, searching. During the busiest and rainiest month of the year. I can’t win against umbrellas. They still have the upper hand.
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