Giant Umbrellas

Yes, that's right, another blog about a newly acquired pet peeve!

Now that the weather has turned for the worse, bringing with it plenty of rain, people have been using their umbrellas a lot more frequently. Most people simply use your regular single person umbrella, most often in black, that folds up nicely when not in use. However, some people insist on using giant golf umbrellas capable of harboring the entire Brady Bunch. This is bad for two reasons!

Reason 1: They hog the sidewalk.
In my neighborhood in particular, the sidewalks are not particularly wide and there are lots of sign posts, lamp posts and trees making the sidewalks just a little bit narrower. When everyone is carrying regular sized umbrellas it can be difficult to pass, when someone has an umbrella twice as big as everyone else's, it's near impossible. Around Notting Hill sidewalks get quite busy during lunch times, and then it's even more noticeable when people take up more space with their umbrellas out, and let's just say chaos would ensue if everyone had the giant breed.

The general carrier of the giant umbrella tends to be male. The easiest explanation for this is that women tend to carry umbrellas that fit into their purses when not in use, but men are less likely to have bags, thus increasing the likelihood that they would carry something larger. And the carriers of these umbrellas also tend to be males tending towards the 'dandy' side of things - think pin-striped suits and slightly longer hair with a bit of a wave, carefully gelled in place who perhaps see their umbrella as an important fashion accessory and therefore think bigger ones must be better. With this particular breed comes that self-important strut. People with self-important struts do not tend to get out of the way of others when walking down the sidewalk, instead others must get out of their way, which is even more annoying when they are ten times their normal dandy size thanks to their ego-sized umbrellas.

Reason 2: They are dangerous weapons
As if things weren't bad enough when people chose to unleash their giant umbrellas in the face of a downpour, things seem to me to be even more treacherous when no rain is involved. You see, instead of carrying their giant umbrellas by the carefully provided curved wooden handle, perhaps for fear of looking as if they are walking with a cane, people seem to prefer to hold on to the middle of their giant umbrella so it rests in the horizontal position. This is how many people carry their umbrellas, but then their umbrellas aren't over two feet long with an elongated, sharpened metal point at one end, swinging slightly from side to side with each self-important saunter. The possibility of impalement leaps even higher at the tube station, while people show some rational thought in placing the impaling tip on the floor while inside the train, they are still quite likely to hold it horizontally on the platform, then constantly twisting about to check how long until the next train and to perhaps have a chat with their friends. It's beyond me how people don't end up pushed onto the tracks by one of these flailing instruments of destruction, or at least just with one impaled into their thigh. Quite frankly I want some news-worthy umbrella incident to occur as to bring to light the dangers of these umbrellas.

I say unless you are indeed the Brady Brunch traveling down the sidewalk in a happy little cluster, there is absolutely no reason for people to use these obscenely sized umbrellas. Their use by individuals, in my mind, is like people using the carpool lane when by themselves but just figure it's their right to use them as their time is more important than others and they have somewhere else to be. And you know, their windows are all blacked out so you can't see what's going on inside anyways.

Okay, I'm done ranting now.