Umbrellas

People should be required to use visually interesting umbrellas. On a day when an umbrella is needed, the dreariness of the landscape is inescapable. Is it too much to ask that the huge swaths of cloth twirling and bobbing in motion should be the reward we get for enduring the complete lack of cheer that comes with the rain?

Black umbrellas, Bah, I spit in your general direction. As if it wasn't depressing enough be to damp and surrounded in an impressionistic landscape of desaturated color. Worse, I actually saw a brown umbrella. Don't get me wrong, I love brown. I think it's a misunderstood color with a rich depth and great potential when it's got a chromatic feel to it. However, this was not one of those browns. This was the exact color brown that gives brown a bad name. It's the color of brown with every last bit of soul sucked right out of it. Who would choose such an umbrella? Who is the soulless creature who thought it was a good idea to make it in the first place? It was a brown that was screaming for the release a mercy burning would give it. It could go to color hell where it belongs and release the general brown soul to try again next time... maybe a rich brown with a nice maroon edge, that would be nice.

Black is at least understandable. People who have black umbrellas are often the type of people who are so afraid of clothing that they can't take any risks with color. They are the accountants of the clothing world. This is not a surprise, considering how big the business school is in this town. Do you think tho, is it truly a fear, that people will take you less seriously with an interesting umbrella? You don't take your umbrella to the boardroom and you don't even want it drip drying in your office if you can help it, no matter what color it is.

That brown one tho, that was the insult that pushed the whole thing too far. Think of everyone else, people. We have nothing to look at but your umbrellas on a rainy day. Make it worthwhile. Take a little bit of time to bring some cheer to the world and pick an umbrella that's bright and cheery and possibly even brings a smile to the face of someone who looks at it. Is that too much to ask for on a rainy day?