I must comment on the ever-increasing size of umbrellas carried by commuters in Boston. The span of umbrellas is keeping pace with the girth of internal combustion engine vehicles. In both cases, bigger is better… if you’re the owner.
Of course you’ll stay drier under a table-sized disk of nylon, but when you’re walking in a crowded downtown area with 100s of other people in the pouring rain, your beach umbrella makes you selfish. You prevent two-way traffic from flowing freely on sidewalks. You bash the sides of other people’s umbrellas. You take up too much space and interfere with the happiness of others.
Sure, if you’re on a picnic or a walk in the country, take your five-foot tall umbrella for shelter from the weather. But when you’re walking through the Financial District, don’t try to intimidate others with the size of your umbrella! The size of your umbrella has no correlation with wealth or status.
A while ago, I saw a man in a business suit walking with a massively-sized umbrella hanging on his back in a sling. I pictured it starting to rain and him whipping it out like a sword… the Yuppie Samurai will stop at nothing to protect his Hugo Boss suit!
(What’s better, yuppies… or tourists? In Government Center at Fanueil Hall yesterday, I waited at a stoplight next to an older couple dressed in near-matching sneakers, jeans and windbreakers. A car honked briefly at a pick-up truck who was hesitating on a left turn for no apparent reason. The woman looked at the car drive away, looked at her husband, and said aggrievedly “What was that all about?”)
