Somewhere along the line Genevieve became obsessed with umbrellas. Not sure how, not sure why, but there it is. A child of the desert with an obsession with a device that she rarely, if ever, will have the opportunity to use.
When I was a child, my grandmother would give me either an umbrella, a pair of gloves, a scarf, or an earmuff every Christmas; sometimes all three. I think my grandmother single-handedly kept the Totes company in business. Because of this, we always had an endless supply of those collapsible umbrellas around the house. Since her demise, I have bought precisely three umbrellas, and two of those three were bought with the primary purpose of keeping off the sun, not the rain. So needless to say, umbrellas are a bit of a novelty to G.
Anyway, one of my three adult umbrella purchases was an ultra-light collapsible we bought for hiking—to ward off rain and sun when G was in the backpack. It worked admirably for this purpose for a year or so, until G became old enough to realize it could also be a fun toy. After this, the poor umbrella was doomed. We made umbrella-chair (tie umbrella to a desk chair and sit at the desk watching Dora or eating breakfast). We had an umbrella-tent (hide under umbrella while sitting on the couch). We did umbrella dancing (run around house holding umbrella while parents pray nothing breaks). We even had umbrella bath. And yes, I think we may have used it once in a drizzle. Maybe.
After a spirited game of umbrella tent, the inevitable happened…one of the ribs broke on the umbrella. G was devastated. She told her Mom-mom that she needed a new umbrella. She told her mom. She told her Dad. We promised maybe for Christmas. We talked about getting her a bonafide kiddie umbrella, but of course, these aren’t easy to find in Arizona. Mom-mom promised to send one from slightly-wetter Florida. Crisis averted.
Then we went to Nashville. And it rained.
And she saw Granny’s umbrella collection. And she was impressed. Big ones, small ones, automatic ones, manual ones, collapsible ones, multicolored ones, ones with hooked handles, ones with sharp pointy tips. You name it, Granny had it. What gives? Is this the legacy of having a mother who gave her grandchildren umbrellas each year for Christmas or a little known genetic trait (psycho-umbrello-compulsion), or just the normal consequence of living for 6 or 7 decades in places where wet stuff falls from the sky regularly? Who knows, and who cares. All that matters was that G was in heaven. Did it matter that it was 30 degrees out? No! what was important was that when we did go outside, we would have our UMBRELLAS!!! YAAAY! But wait, there’s more! We could also wear….wait for it….yes…that’s right…A RAINCOAT!!! And not some modern-REI-faggy goretex windbreaker thing you might also wear on the slopes. No, a real, old-fashioned, no-other-use-but-wearing-in-the-rain RAINCOAT! Yellow, and everything. Does it get any cooler? G says no. What a happy girl.
