Digital Diatribe

Having just arrived back from a pleasant holiday in Canada, where the local precipitation consisted mostly of snow, I have been greeted by monsoonal rain and a frog guarding my front door.
I like to refer to it as my guard frog, like a guard dog but smaller and inherently more evil.

With all the rain I was surprised my house hadn’t flooded again, but it seems the neighbors saw fit to clean the drains while I was away.

I managed to make it in to work today without my clothing reaching saturation point, but shortly before going out to grab a mid morning caffeinated beverage the heavens opened up like an incontinent alcoholic and it hasn’t stopped raining since.

This wouldn’t really be a problem, as I love the rain, primarily because other people hate it and I’m the kind of person that revels in the misery of others, but moreso because I love the fresh air after a particularly good storm and the sound of heavy rain on a corrugated iron roof is rather pleasant to fall asleep to.
Getting back to the problem at hand, or rather in hand in this case; The Umbrella.

I am practically convinced that much like the yo-yo, the umbrella was first developed as a weapon. Why else would it have so many needle like points with which to remove an eye? All one need do is walk down a congested city street and they will have rendered the majority of it’s altitudinous inhabitants visionless.

The umbrella really isn’t a useful tool in protecting oneself from imminent absorption of cloud juice so much as a multi purpose military aid. You can use it when it’s closed to stab people with tetanus infused ball bearings KGB style, you can use the hooked handle to sweep the legs out from under people and if that fails you can always open the thing and hide behind it like the umbrella wielding coward that you are.

Which brings on to my my main point of contention. The people that actually use umbrellas.
If you’ve got an umbrella I assume that unlike me you have purchased it with the main intention of keeping yourself dry rather than the unlikely yet more entertaining possibility that you will use it to viciously mutilate someone.
That being the case, why the fuck are you walking under an awning with it fully open? An awning that was specifically designed to keep the rain off people with enough sense not to go out and buy an umbrella.
There is a latch on the bloody thing for a reason and that is so you can close it when you’re not using it to remove an eye.

I can think more enjoyable ways to turn myself into a lightning conductor, the main one being to paint my knob gold and lay on my back. The fact that were I to use one of these devices I’d basically become a mobile lightning rod does not inspire the least bit of confidence.

So between the actual device and the people that use it, the whole concept is a write off. It baffles me why people go to trouble of using it, when you have to carry it around everywhere, thus taking up a valuable hand that could be used to smack people in front of you for walking too slowly.

I’ll quite happily stick to my raincoat and gumboots, safe in the knowledge that if I do get stuck by lightning at least I’ll be well insulated and won’t have taken an eye out on the way.