I’ve heard of dozens of little personal records that people keep. How long a person has gone without smoking. How long someone has gone without throwing up (this is a personal favourite of mine). How many cheeseburgers someone has eaten in an hour.
I had a little record going that I was quite proud of. How many years of using public transit without losing an umbrella. Over the last decade, I’ve used public transit a lot. From buses to Skytrain to commuter rail, I’ve been on them all. Living in Vancouver, you can bet I’ve gone from A to B while it was raining with umbrella in hand. In over ten years of transiting, I don’t think I’ve lost a single umbrella… until last week.
I’m not sure what happened. I was on the Skytrain and had put my umbrella underneath me near my feet, like I always do. When it was my stop, I just got and left. It wasn’t until I was on the next train on the other line that I realized I didn’t bother to pick up my umbrella. I also realized at that time, I hadn’t lost a brolly in many, many years. Now replacing that umbrella won’t be that hard but going another decade without losing one, that’ll be tougher.