My umbrella is never where it needs to be. It's either at home, or at the office when I am either at the office, or at home. This morning I woke to the sound of rain on the trees outside my bedroom window. With the realisation that I would be walking to my bus and ferry and work in the rain, also came the knowledge that my umbrella was leaning up against the wall by my desk at work. I can't get my Umbrella Feng Shui right. I spend most of my week carrying it to and from work with the idea it might rain. To finally leaving it at work rather than carry it one more rainless evening home, to wake up the following morning to precipitation. This is a cycle that repeats itself with regularity throughout my year.
It wasn't raining more than a dusty drizzle by the time I left the house. A little bit of rain never hurt anybody, so I had no problem standing on the exposed jetty waiting for the ferry. Trouble is, with rain, is that while sometimes it can stop; sometimes, it can fall harder and more often too. I was slowly but surely getting wet. I accepted this as my fate for being out of whack with my feng shui and turn to watch all the smart umbrella'd people walking onto the jetty, smug in their dryness. And then there he was. He stepped very close to me, his large golf umbrella sheltering me from the rain "We can't have you melting away, now, can we?" he said.
We stood there in comfortable, dry silence until it was time to board the ferry. I thanked him, and he assured me it had been his pleasure.
By the time we got into Auckland, the rain was pouring down. My only hope was to buy another umbrella, which I did, and made it to work in relative dryness. I now have 2 umbrella's - what's the bet that *both* of them are somewhere I am not next time it rains.