Sydney, Australia: world capital of abandoned umbrellas. Walking from Surry Hills to George Street in the driving rain today, I came across at least a dozen broken umbrellas; tossed aside in gutters, parks, on the footpath, and sticking out of rubbish bins. I even bore witness to an act of abandonment: I saw the wind rip an umbrella out of the hands of a girl six meters ahead of me and watched it float back, people dodging it, until it was caught by a man just in front of me. Actually it wasn't ripped from her hands, since she still held the handle -- it had broken off mid-stem. She didn't even attempt to recover it! She just threw the handle to the ground and leaned into the wind, driving her now empty hands deep inside her pockets.
I'm sitting on the top floor of the Apple store looking at the umbrella that I bought for $11 a few hours ago. It's already bent and pitiful. It won't close because the hooks that hold it shut were busted by the force of the gale. I'll probably toss it into the air on the way home and watch it sail away.
