Umbrellas

It's raining. Dumping down. Lilly was ecstatic. Me, I'm more like Marlowe, our gigantic grey tabby tomcat, who scooted in like a shot when I opened the door and then sat in the middle of the qashqai, meowing at me like it was my fault. Perhaps that's what cats actually believe? Could part of the ancient antipathy between cats and humans, the passive agressive resentment even the friendliest of them seem to harbor, be due to the fact that all cats to a kitten believe we humans control the weather? Is this passed down from generation to generation? Enculturated cat lore--it could explain a lot. Is there any way at all, do you think, to resolve this?
"It's not my fault." I tell Marlowe.
"Meow."
"Fuck you."
Of course, we couldn't find an umbrella. And this wasn't the sort of rain you could dodge between the drops, on if you know what I mean. Oh, there was this great movie I saw a few years ago--based on Rashomon, with Forest Whitaker. Zen and the white dog, or something like that. And there was this quote--keeping to the eaves in a storm, you will still be drenched. Ah so. We really needed an umbrella.
For some reason, the commandment "thou shalt not steal" does not apply to umbrellas. People just lift umbrellas with impunity, with no guilty conscience at all. I had an umbrella I loved--I've replaced it three times--then I gave up. It's the Magritte umbrella, black on the outside with the clouds inside. I think it's the best umbrella in the world, but every time I order another, it's stolen right away. And in very respectable places--like my office, or at parent/teacher day, or from the break room. I decided it was just too tempting after the third theft and went back to cheap,nondescript umbrellas. But those were stolen, too. Or lost. But today, I just had it. After rooting through all the closets and the cars and finally giving up and running to the car, dropping my yoga pants on the way into a puddle, I went to Walgreen's after letting Lilly off at school and bought 5 umbrellas. Big golf size ones. One has polka dots, one has green and white stripes, one has blue and white stripes, one is red and black, and one is just black. I'm going to put one in each car and three in the house (for Nick, Lilly, and myself). Hopefully, with 5 umbrellas, we will always have one. 80 bucks.
"My favorite is the polka dot one," the girl behind the counter says. "You should keep that one for you." She actually let me get ahead of all the other people in line by opening up the cash register in the cosmetics aisle. One of the secrets of getting out of Walgreens fast. Trust me, I have a strategy for every single situation.
"That's what I was thinking!" We smiled at each other in mutual recognition.
"You don't need a bag, right?" she asks "I mean, they're umbrellas, so it's okay if they get wet..."
Right. So I stepped out triumphantly into the wet parking lot, hitting the button on my new poka dot umbrella, feeling as if I was engaging my light saber.
And as I stepped onto the asphalt, a volkswagon Jetta went skidding past me, maybe missing me by 3 feet, and carreened (spelling?) into one of the cars parked there.
The rain was really coming down now, and the temperature had dropped. A bedraggled, harried looking young woman got out of the car and inspected the damage to the other car. I stood on the curb, recovering, staring at the cars. She looked over at me--"It's okay," she told me. She looked like she was going to cry. "I'm going to leave a note." she said defensively.
The woman who owned the car came out of the store just then. I walked over, too.
"Would you like to use one of my umbrellas? I just bought 5."
"That's why I was coming here in the first place! To buy an umbrella!" the harried looking woman said.
"I'll wait in my car."
They picked the blue and white one. I sat in Margaret the Mercury and listened to the radio. The station was playing a track from the new album from Los Lobos, and by the time it was done, they had finished exchanging information and inspecting the damage and the rain had slackened.
The girl returned my umbrella and went into Walgreen's, presumably to complete her errand.
Maybe it isn't that people steal umbrellas. Maybe it just looks like we steal umbrellas. Maybe we are like children in this, and the splattering equal justice of the rain (when the rain falls..it falls on all alike) brings us to the truth, to the essential "should" and rightness of the situation. You don't really want me to get wet, do you? How nice of you to leave this umbrella here where I can use it.
I think maybe the rain somehow makes us all brothers, and umbrellas offer travelling sanctuary. Who owns the moon? Who owns the rain? And, who really owns an umbrella?