A Quick Review of Umbrella Etiquette

I realized yesterday while walking around the city during the umpteenth day of consecutive rain (I'm exaggerating, we did have one day of partial sunshine) that some people need to review the rules of umbrella etiquette. Perhaps the problem is that they have always been unwritten rules, passed down from parent to child for generations (for as far back as umbrellas have existed). Well, they are unwritten no longer:

- When walking on a crowded sidewalk (and in NYC they always are, even in the rain), dip or tilt or raise your umbrella away from people you are walking towards as you pass them. This prevents the tips of the spokes of your umbrella from gouging out the other person's eyes! The action you take will depend on the height of your umbrella which of course is dependent on your own height.

- When walking under scaffolding with an open umbrella, DON'T! There is no space for people let alone people with open umbrellas. Although the scaffolding will probably be leaking, close your umbrella until you are about to step out from under it. Because there is so much scaffolding in the city, you might be lucky enough to get where you're going without actually having to open your umbrella.

- Golf umbrellas are meant for golf courses (those open expanses of green that we don't have any of in Manhattan). Umbrellas used by people in NYC should be small and compact. (See Rule #1) In strong winds, a large umbrella never protects your bottom half from getting wet anyway.

- When getting on a bus with a soaking wet umbrella, fold it completely before you start walking to the back of the bus so that you do not get other passengers wetter than they already are.

- Do not lay a wet umbrella on a bus seat or subway seat. Carry packs of tissues with you on rainy days so that when other people have ignored this rule, you have some recourse. It is your moral obligation if you are sitting near a seat that you know is wet, to inform people who are about to sit in those seats of their "wetness". If they choose to sit anyway, your moral obligation ends.

Snow Day for NYC Public Schools

For those of you who have nothing to do with the NYC public school system, the title for this blog may be engendering the following response...huh? So what? Well, the last time the NYC public schools had a snow day was in 2004 and there was such a backlash to that decsion, you would have thought a fan favorite had been voted off American Idol!

People who work for the NYC public schools or who have children in them are used to watching the names of neighboring districts and private and parochial schools in the five boros, scroll continuously at the bottom of the TV screen on news stations on snowy days. We tell our children, "Don't bother to look, your school is open!" We tell them, "Make your own breakfast. I have to leave early to get to work on time."

There is something "honorable" about the schools in NYC rarely closing due to weather. It means New Yorkers are tough...we are prepared...we are teaching our children that school is important and that attending is worth the effort even if it is more difficult than usual! Even President Obama joked that he would have to teach the DC school his daughters attend a thing or two about Chicago toughness when the school closed due to a small amount of snow last month. It is closed again today.

Closing the public schools presents a real hardship for working families, especially in single parent homes. Junior and senior high school students can stay home by themselves but the anxiety that creates for their parent(s) means, that as an employee, he or she is functioning at less than optimum level. For elementary school children, someone has to take a sick day or use a vacation day, hire (at short notice) an expensive baby sitter or impose on family or friends.

Whether it was really necessary to close the schools today remains to be seen. It is still snowing and there is not much street traffic even in Manhattan. Many children travel to school on buses, so of course, it is their safety that must be the primary decision-making criterion. I'll withhold my judgement for the time being.