Unjustified rants

[ladyofastolat]

What is an LJ for if not to launch totally unjustified rants about trivial things that really don't deserve your vitriol? My chosen target for today is umbrellas. Now, I'm sure that many people here are habitual umbrellas users, and many more dabble in the umbrella sub-culture every now and then, and yes, yes, I know: unreasonable, but I refer you back to the whole "trival things" and "really don't deserve vitriol" etc. etc., and I will rant away.

Umbrellas. I don't like using them. Within that simple construction of fabric and metal lurks a monster of extreme willfulness. Nothing delights this monster more than to buck and lash around, forcing the hapless person who wants to subdue it to fight it every step of the way. When it's mildly drizzling in a strong wind, I look out and watch hordes of people fighting an enormous battle to win one small foot of land at a time, and I think, "why bother?"

Most of all, though, I hate falling foul of other people's anti-social umbrella use. There you are, watching a nice joust or a ritual burning, when two drops of rain fall from the sky, and everyone on the front row immediately erects enormous umbrellas large enough to protect an army, totally heedless of the fact that no-one behind them can see a thing.

Then you have those people who put umbrellas up in crowded shopping streets, and charge ahead in their protective little bubble, not caring that they are leaving a train of people with poked-out eyes in their wake. Worst of all are those whose umbrellas are broken, due to the epic battles described above, so that they become a deadly aedifice of impaling spikes.

And then you have people who insist on sharing their umbrella with you - and, yes, yes, I know that they do so with the best of intentions, but when you genuinely say, "no, honestly, I'm fine, please, no, don't, please, please, no, anything but bring me within the deadly shadow of the deadly umbrella," they still do it, meaning that you have to walk with your neck at an angle of 45 degrees to avoid having a waterfall land on your head.

So I bring you umbrellas, subject of my unjustifed rant. Anyone else want to rant at an unjustified and trivial subject?

Comments

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Coathangers.

(With you on the subject of umbrellas by the way.)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

What's so rant-worthy about coathangers?

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

They never seem to be the right shape to hold onto the item of clothing you want them to; they break; sometimes they fail to grip the item of clothing; sometimes they refuse to let go of the item of clothing when you want to wear it; they get tangled up with each other...

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I think you need to deal with a better class of coat hangers. Due to Pellinor's fondness for bulk buying, we have about 60 identical coat hangers bought from a dry cleaners'. They're sturdy yellow plastic - just a simple triangle with no fancy bits - and they never break, are large enough for anything you want to use them for, and never refuse to yield their grip on an item of clothing.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Not bought, they came free with the dry-cleaning back in the days when I needed regular dry-cleaning of suits.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Do you not wear a suit now, or do you wear washable ones?

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Rare suits. Only when meeting clients, and as I'm no longer client-facing... :-)

Though I notice that in London "Business casual" means "suit but no tie", although down here it tends to mean "casual trousers and a shirt (probably blue and checked).