It's wet, it's heavy, it's snow

It's messy, but it surrre is pretty...

Dupont Circle

Dupont Circle

1700 block of Q Street

Happiness is literally my umbrella

Tropical Storm Asshole (so named because it ruined my friend Ivan's boating vacation) is sweeping over the WDCMA today and, as tends to happen with tropical storms, it's raining. A lot. And my puny, semi-broken umbrella had been left at the office, and there I was at home. I was at home because that's where I live.

I had resigned myself to venturing out with my long-past-its-waterproofed-usefulness rain jacket which keeps off the rain more in theory than in practice, and figure I'd get to work soaked, when I could then revel in my new position as a weather martyr, in which God grants me all rights to be in a mood as foul as the weather.

Then I remembered what was in my closet: an umbrella that I had gotten for free at a show in Winston-Salem years ago. It's a huge one, with a sturdy wood handle and coverage for a family of five. I had never used it before, and I almost chose to be soaked than carry this umbrella. Why? Because every square inch of this land-mass-sized umbrella is covered in full-color comics from the Winston-Salem Journal. Peanuts, Garfield, Family Circus (!), Hagar the Horrible (!!), Cathy. Only the presence of a business-themed Dilbert assured me that this umbrella was made after 1990, though it maybe says more than enough about the quality of the comics page of the Winston-Salem Journal.

So if you saw a slightly-embarrassed but very dry man walking across Dupont Circle this morning being sheltered by the comics page, that man was, obviously, me. And know that I don't carry that umbrella out of habit; only out of desperation.