I'll always have an umbrella when I need one

I don’t know about you, but admitting that you own an umbrella in the desert Southwest is enough embarrassment without being caught foisting one above your noggin in public.

I caught myself chuckling out loud as I scurried into the store for a few groceries after work with my bright yellow umbrella held above my shiny pate. I should be celebrating this rain by singing in it. I probably ought to be dancing off the light poles like Gene Kelly.

I doubt if the taps on my shoes will ever get rusty living in eastern New Mexico. But it might be nice if I wasn’t so darned self-conscious toting an umbrella. After all, when we get rain we tend to get it in buckets around here.

The night in question last week was one of those nights. As I got to the door after being passed by at least a half dozen folks doing the 50-yard dash and backstroke without an umbrella I noticed a gathering in the foyer. We all know that if you wait a few minutes around here the weather will change and several ladies were betting their hairdos on that axiom.

I joked to one guy that maybe I should rent my umbrella out to those less fortunate. He didn’t find that remark as funny as I did.

Anyway, I had the little compact push-button bumbershoot that I keep stowed in the pocket on the side of the car door. Go ahead laugh when I tell you I keep an umbrella at my fingertips like some blue-haired grandma. My shirt didn’t get plastered to my back as I went inside.

I guess if I were going to rent an umbrella I would need a big one that I could walk someone to their car under. If I couldn’t hang onto it myself, what would be the point in letting someone run off with my device.

I actually had the perfect umbrella behind the seat, you’re laughing again, but I believe in being optimistic. If you’re not ready for rain you might never get it. I have a rain gauge on my fence too.

Anyway, this umbrella actually opens inside-out. “Ingenious,” I said upon seeing it in a stack of giveaway umbrellas gathering dust in a local office. I knew it was ingenious because just one year before while walking my sweet wife back to the car under our larger umbrella I had the thing turned inside-out on me by a gust of wind just as we got to the vehicle.

Had it been of this unique design things would have been great because my umbrella would have closed itself just in time. As it is now, the thing is leaning against the garage wall ready to do battle with the next mouse that presents itself out there.

I know by now most of you are snickering because you have done the math and come to the conclusion that I currently own more parasols than one man could ever use. That may be true but I’ll never find myself like Charley Pride with rain drippin’ off the brim of my hat on the way to San Antone.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]