Only The Best

Last night around 9PM, I decided to head out and get a couple of bagels at H&H and pick up some lox and cream cheese at Citarella. I don't know what possessed me to go out last night other than my craving for a yummy H&H bagel because it was MONSOONING last night. It was the type of night where you're like "Screw it. My feet are gonna be soaked, and so who gives a shit." My umbrella kept the top of my head dry, but that's about it. When I got home, I literally could wring the water out of the bottoms of my designer Helmut Lang jeans (my favorite jeans).

Boy do I miss my old umbrella. Right now, I have a cheapie umbrella that I bought at Rite-Aid. It's so cheesy. One of the umbrella panes has the "I Heart NY" logo. I used to have an umbrella that I loved. I bought it at Hammacher Schlemmer. It had lots of features that made it the best umbrella. I loved the shape of it: it had a nice dome shape versus the spread out shape that most umbrellas have. Also, the handle was this nice wooden hook shape, so I could hang it off my arm when I didn't need it, leaving my hands free to hold my magazine and blackberry or just free in general to wave around. But the best part was the little lever that opened and closed the umbrella as opposed to the traditional blade-like thing on most umbrellas.

Over the years, I would come to lose my precious umbrella, but would always promptly buy a replacement. But a year ago, I left the last one of these (my fifth) that I owned on the BART train when going back to SF after visiting my friend in San Mateo. As soon as I got back to my hotel, I realized what I had done. Well, not to worry. I'll just order another one. Or so I thought.

When I got back to my hotel room, I turned on my laptop and went to Hammacher Schlemmer's site (via MPOnline Mall because I'm a frequent-flyer miles junkie) and went to the umbrellas section. It was gone! I searched frantically for my umbrella, but Hammacher decided to stop selling it. Oh my god. I couldn't believe it. What was I going to do? I then started to search Google for my umbrella and found something similar, but it was something like $100. No way was I gonna pay that. I then wrote an email to Hammacher and BEGGED them to bring my umbrella back or tell me the supplier for that umbrella. Well, of course they didn't tell me the supplier, since most stores won't reveal that. But they did tell me of "another" umbrella they sell. I promptly replied, "If I wanted that umbrella, I would have asked about it."

I eventually came to terms with my loss and accepted that I would never find this umbrella again. It was a one-of-a-kind, I figured. Everytime I thought about losing this umbrella, I'd lament its loss. And last night, in that torrential rain (first rain here in NY in a while), I thought about it again. When I got home, I thought to myself "That's it. I've mourned long enough. I need to replace my old umbrella (too bad I never gave my umbrellas names)." After searching and searching, I found it! Well, it wasn't exactly the same, but very close. Neiman Marcus has a version that's very similar called the Gustbuster Classic. Yay! I'm so happy! I'll have to buy a whole case of Gustbusters.