UMBRELLA SHORTAGE

A while ago, the business park put a square tub in the foyer and stacked five or six white umbrellas in it.

The idea is that you borrow an umbrella when you need it and then put it back when you’ve used it. There are similar umbrellas in all the buildings, including the café, where I am today, eating a vegetable bake and surveying the lake. There must be close to a hundred white umbrellas somewhere.

You know where this is going. I’m sitting here, watching heavy rain sweep across the water, and the clouds roll above the trees, bending in the wind. Opposite me, is the café's umbrella bin.

It’s empty.

Probably in use, you might charitably think. Well, a quick scan of the lake reveals a grand total of two white umbrellas walking round, complete with overcoated individuals suspended beneath them.

Two. Where are all the others then?

It wasn’t raining when I got here. But even if it were, a glance at the umbrella tub back in the foyer would have told me exactly what it tells me every other day, whether it’s raining or the sun is cracking the flagstones: empty.

I’m wearing a hoodie. I’m in for a soaking.

The personal equation, the reason for the 2018 Umbrella Shortage is probably obvious, now that I sit here thinking about it:

Free umbrella, useful, thank you business park; can’t put it back wet, need to dry it out in the office. Ooh. Forgot about it, left it there, open, but now that it’s dry, maybe I should keep it here and then next time, I’m guaranteed an umbrella and I don’t even have to think! Genius.

And so some of us have to get wet, while the rest stack up piles of dry umbrellas in locked offices for their own personal convenience. 

So. How’s it solved? Do the business park attempt to force the selfish hoarders to return the brollies? Should they put on some sort of umbrella amnesty? Or should they just keep refilling the umbrella pots with fresh white umbrellas? Can they afford it? Should the umbrellas be free at all? Ought there be a fine for late return, like there is in the library? How would that work?

It’s never likely that there will be a hundred people out in the rain at the same time, so in theory there should be more than enough umbrellage to go round. How do you stop the imbalance from recurring? How do you make getting-wet-at-lunchtime a thing of the past, for everyone?

Tricky, isn’t it?

I’ve eaten my delicious vegetable bake, looking out from the warm, heated café at the side of a beautiful lake, cascading fountains and green grass. Beyond the wavy trees, my office beckons me back to my comfortable job, my blessed life, and my ample paycheck.

I don’t really have a lot to complain about, when I really think about it.