Craig Dodge - Blog

I go through a lot of umbrellas. Either I forget and leave them someplace, or the umbrella was so cheap, it breaks after using it just a short time.

One of my friends who has lived in Taiwan for a long time told me that I shouldn't worry about it because here we have "community umbrellas". You will notice outside of office buildings and convenience stores racks full of umbrellas. I thought the racks were there so the customers wouldn't take their wet umbrellas into the shops, but my friend told me that it's sort of an unofficial umbrella share program. People pick one up where they need to and just drop it off at the next rack when they are finished using it. I'm not sure if that's true, but it is the reason why I will never put an umbrella into those racks.

All over Taipei, stores sell cheap umbrellas. I see prices as low as NT$100-200, which is about US$3-6. Pretty cheap, huh. I figure it's because no one wants to donate any expensive umbrellas to the community share program, but who knows. My partner tells me that he won't buy expensive umbrellas because he too forgets them and leaves them some place.

I just can't bring myself, though, to waste my time to buy another cheap piece of junk that will just break after a few uses, so recently when another friend said he was going to a shop that had very high quality umbrellas for decent prices, I asked him to get one for me. It cost about NT$500 (US$15) and appears to be very sturdy. When folded, it's small enough to fit in my bag and when fully extended, it's big enough to actually keep me dry. I'm really happy with the purchase.

Here's where Murphy's Law comes in. In case you are not familiar with Murphy's Law, it basically says that if anything can go wrong, it will. Here are some other ways to use this axiom:

If you arrive at the airport early, your flight will be late.

If you arrive late to the airport, your flight will be on time.

If you didn't do your homework, there will be a test on it.

If you did your homework, the teacher won't even ask.

So it isn't any different in the case of my new, fabulous umbrella. I got it almost 2 weeks ago, and guess what..... No, I didn't lose it or leave it anywhere, but in the past 2 weeks, it has not rained even once, which is unusual for Taiwan this time of year. I'm still waiting to give it a try.