I sat in the car line, waiting to pick my children up from school, and noticed a woman walking with an umbrella. And it bothered me terribly.
I know, I know, an umbrella is usually not the sort of thing to send a mildly-obsessive person into a tailspin, but this time it did.
It was not the umbrella itself that had me worked into a tizzy, it was the fact that it had stopped raining. It was no longer raining. It was dry and the sun was coming back out.
I just wanted to get out of my car and go over to her an tell her that she didn’t need the umbrella anymore. More than that, I wanted her to close it right now. Right. Now. And I had visions of going over and ripping the umbrella out of her hands while yelling, “It’s not raining! It has stopped! You MUST CLOSE your umbrella!”
I watched her walk all the way up the sidewalk and to the front of the school. I watched her greet her children, and then huddle them close to her under the umbrella. I then watched her walk all the way back down the sidewalk. Under the umbrella.
All the while, she passed people who were carrying their closed umbrellas. She passed people walking with nary an umbrella. She passed these people and obviously didn’t think a thing of it. And it bothered me. Oh how it bothered me.
I think it’s a testament to my strength that I didn’t say anything to this woman. I realize that my problem with her carrying an open umbrella while it wasn’t raining was mine, and mine alone. I know deep in my heart that it is perfectly fine for her to walk with whatever she wanted to walk with.
But, man, it really bothered me. It’s going to take a long time for me to forget this.
