I’m a BC girl – I grew up in Victoria and have lived in Vancouver for 5 years. Southern BC is a wet place (although not nearly as wet as people would have you believe – we lie so others don’t crash our party), but I am against Dressing for the Weather – I rarely wear a coat or jacket, would go barefoot year ’round if I could, and carry an umbrella? Don’t make me laugh.

However, with age came a glimmer of common sense so I figured it was time to Do Something to protect myself against the elements. As my plot to take over the world thickens, my standard MO of “don’t go outside” is getting harder to stick with – so I better cover up, and I might as well be fabulous while doing it.

To that end, I purchased an umbrella and a pair of rain boots off the internet. Sure, I could just go to Canadian Tire and buy some over the counter gear that would do the trick – but I wouldn’t be fabulous*, and that’s the whole point.

I bought these boots and this umbrella because they are fantastic. The boots should be here today and I have convinced myself that I am totally capable of walking in them, my issues with gravity be damned. The umbrella arrived yesterday, and with it, the uncovering of a plot most foul:

UPS does not want me to be warm and dry.

The umbrella was shipped in a separate box. The box was a little beat up, but nothing out of the ordinary – I’ve seen worse. Unfortunately, when I opened it, I discovered that the handle of the umbrella was broken. I promptly emailed the company, who apologized and promised a replacement ASAP – cool! They said I could keep or throw away the original, so I thought I would try to fix it – after all, it was just a snapped handle. No biggie. I took the umbrella home with me, and set about to try and fix it last night.

When I unwrapped it and tried to open it, I discovered just how badly broken it was – UPS had somehow FOLDED the umbrella, then straightened it out to hide the damage. The handle wasn’t just broken at the end, it was in three pieces. The metal frame of the umbrella was warped from being bent – I couldn’t open it all the way, and couldn’t close it down for the same reason. The entire thing looked as though it had been run over  by a truck – I’ve seen discarded umbrellas tossed on the sidewalk in better shape than this thing was, even if it looked fine from the outside.

It’s raining today, and I don’t have an umbrella. I am going to catch diseases and DIE. Thanks a lot, UPS. You suck.

The boots, though, are amazing:

:D