Umbrella Rant

In my three years of living in New York City, I have come to a conclusion.  It is possibly the greatest city in the world, at least in the US, for just about everything.  But there are two exceptions:

1) Money - Everything is so expensive but, you deal with it if you want to live here.

and 2) RAIN - This one is less obvious but occurs to me every time the weather takes a turn for the wet, which it did during the last week.

Now, I realize rain is an important and helps things to grow... blah, blah, blah.  I grew up in a very rural area of Florida where most people got their income from some sort of agricultural job.  So, I realize rain's importance to the environment.

In New York City though, there is hardly any grass anywhere and the rain just seems to cause people to be more stupid than they already are.  Most of this stupidity comes in the form of one object... the umbrella.

In my opinion, an umbrella is about useless.  In a city like this, the tall buildings serve as a wind tunnel in bad weather.  Umbrellas only seem to act as something to give you problems, hit other people in the face and hardly ever keep you dry.

People apparently have no concept of how to think of others when it comes to using their umbrellas.  They barrel down the sidewalk as if they are the only people out picking off, glasses, hair and eyeballs as they go.  I'm not sure how many times I've walked down the street and been hit the face with someone's 'brella because they don't seem to know how to move it out of the way.  It's really not that hard, I swear.  Maybe I could teach a class on umbrella etiquette.  People teach classes for everything these days.  I bet I could make some money at it.

It's really not that hard.  When another person is coming toward you, simply raise or lower your 'brella to avoid hitting theirs.  If it's stopped raining, close it.  If you walk under scaffolding, close it.  If you can't seem to do any of these things because you're too self involved, move to a city where you can sit in your car and be in your own little world, cut off from everyone around you.  I wonder how much I could get for teaching these 4 simple steps?

Maybe I'm asking too much.  Who knows?  Sometimes I think that common courtesy has gone out the window.  Am I getting old?  Is that why things like this bother me?  I don't know.  I just know it's supposed to rain today and I have to put on my helmet.  I'll be counting the scratches on my face when I get home.

Until next time...