From: Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Umbrellas
Date: 16 Oct 92 11:58:06 GMT
Reply-To: Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford)
Organization: Penicuik People's Revolutionary Sheepdog Liberation Front

Despite having lived in Scotland all my life, until recently I'd never
owned or even used an umbrella. This, given Scotland's maritime climate (*)
is generally considered to be rather strange but I've always been of the
opinion that a little rain never did any harm and the endless colds and
coughs that I was assured I would catch never really materialised.

However, with the imminent arrival of She Who Considers 80F To Be A Little
Chilly and the inevitability of getting rained on, I decided it might be
time to actually buy one of the damn things. So, one extremely rainy Friday
afternoon, I wandered down to Princes Street, getting soaked to the skin in
the process, and bought an umbrella.

It's a nice umbrella, a big golf one (**) with spiffy red and black panels.
However, joining the ranks of the umbrella-owning elite has been a
distinctly peeveworthy experience.

Peeve 1: I'm just not used to carrying an umbrella around with me. It's a
serious pain to carry the bloody thing everywhere - golf umbrellas on the
whole don't fold and mine also demonstrates an uncanny ability to fall over
no matter how carefully I prop it up.

Peeve 2: It's a lethal weapon. The combination of the Six Inch Sharpened
Metal Spike on the end and the Needle-Like Spokes lead me to suspect this
isn't any ordinary umbrella. Remember Oddjob's razor-edged hat in the James
Bond film _Goldfinger_? Well, if Oddjob had wanted the usual city
businessman's ensemble of bowler and umbrella, he should have bought one
like mine. If you were to spin this umbrella in front of you and walk into
a crowd, the effect would be rather like Dan "The Grim Reaper" Sorenson's
Death Combine only considerably gorier. I'm sure that if I press the little
catch on the shaft in a certain way, something frightening will happen,
like it'll fire an explosive dart into an innocent passer-by or turn into
an autogyro.

Peeve 3: On the one occasion I've actually had cause to use it (see Peeve 4
for more background) the rain seemed completely oblivious to its existence
and somehow went *around* it, so that when I arrived at my destination, I
was drenched *despite* the fact that the rain was coming down vertically.
Quantum tunneling? Or is my umbrella in fact just some sort of rain
concentrator?

Peeve 4: Rain and the presence of my umbrella seem to be mutually
exclusive. If the weather forecast predicts we're going to have non-stop
torrential rain for the next three weeks, by the time I reach the front
door and put it up we're having a heatwave. If we're assured of a fortnight
of glorious sunshine, we're into the monsoon season the very *instant* I
decide I can leave the umbrella at home.

Reality, of course, does this to humiliate me. Two of the most embarrassing
situations that occur regularly (***) are getting rained upon in a serious
manner on a day when you don't have an umbrella with you, and taking your
umbrella with you on what eventually turns to be the hottest, driest day
since records began. Fate and my umbrella are conspiring against me.

Anyone got any droughts they need fixed? Perhaps if I come visit and forget
to bring my umbrella...

(*) Meaning it's like living underwater.
(**) Meaning you could comfortably hold a circus beneath it.
(***) Meaning that while other situations, such as having your clothing
mysteriously transmute into a Bay City Rollers outfit just as you stand to
give a keynote speech at a major conference, might be more embarrassing,
they don't happen very often.

--
		Not Al Crawford - Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk
      "Brothers, sisters, we don't need this fascist sheepdog thang"
Newsgroups: alt.peeves