Storm's gone. I miss it already. I was forced, yesterday, to use this one umbrella, a really big one, with the signature colors and seal of my alma mater, the kind of memento you keep in boxes that age in your attic. My wife had brought with her one of our umbrellas, and I had ruined my green one last rainy season--never got it fixed--and it was pouring yesterday, what with those hard winds slapping the rain around, hitting me with a carpet of water at each wind's shove. I ran back inside, stepped out of my wet shoes, ran upstairs, and pulled up a chair to step on. The big umbrella was on top of our closet. Tearing the plastic wrapper, I sighed as I stepped back from the window, to give the umbrella room to unfold. It was big after all, and as it openned up, somebody's laundry slammed on the window, and then vanished, caught up in the torrent of wind and rain. I closed the umbrella, went down stairs, put my shoes back on, and openned the door. When the wind shifted and rammed me with rain, I took back my sigh. I had a dome on top of me, big as a beach umbrella, shielding me from hard rain and torn up shreds of plants. If only I had a pair of rain boots to match my umbrella's color.