Umbrellaless

Some time after I arrived at class today another woman came in even later than I was. She proceeded to tell us about how there was a fire in her building so she had to run out with her laptop while she was putting together her presentation.

Which is to say she had a better excuse than I had, even though I didn't bother to say mine.

My first bus was a couple minutes late, which normally wouldn't have been a problem, seeing as I usually have to wait about fifteen minutes for my second bus. But as I got on this bus, a lady followed behind me with a baby stroller, which always seems to take a lot of manouvering and yelling at people are sleeping in the front seats with ipods on full, so we lost some time there.

Two stops later, a second woman with a baby stroller got on, which took more manouvering and more kicking people out of seats. More time.

There's a group of Iranian ladies who always get on in front of the Starbucks. There are usually about six of them, sometimes with children, other times without, and when they walk on to the bus, they're always in the middle of a conversation. And, because they're so absorbed with talking to each other, they sometimes forget that they're on a bus and stand just inside the door talking, without paying or moving towards the seats.

It just so happens that not only were these women waiting to get on at the Starbucks, but coincidentally both mothers and both strollers were also getting off at that stop. Confusion and time waste ensued.

The sum of these events meant I missed my second bus and ended up waiting twenty minutes for the next one. During that time, the heavens opened up and I came to two sudden realizations:

1) my shoes, which had previously been waterproof, are no longer waterproof.

2) my umbrella, which had previously been waterproof, is no longer waterproof.

The umbrella has developed a leak in the very centre, so that water literally pours down the shaft and then soaks right into my coat right around my shoulder and into my armpit. That just will not do. You can't survive in Vancouver long without a decent umbrella.

It's rather unfortunate because owing to the fact that it's huge and gaudy, it's the only umbrella I've never been able to lose.