by Nancy Linenkugel
Contributor
On a recent rainy day I reached to the back seat of the car to retrieve my over-sized umbrella, one of two rain shields I carry with me. I have a small umbrella for small rains and a large umbrella for large rains. Today was one of those large-rain days.
I grabbed the large umbrella, undid two holding straps, held it out of the ajar car door and hit the "open" button. Whoosh! The umbrella magically became full-sized and provided great cover. As I walked along, I thought about a prior experience of using that umbrella.
A friend and I were on one of our periodic adventures to places we hadn't seen before. I arranged this particular experience which included a tour of an historic cemetery. It happened to be an overcast day with a few raindrops here and there, so we got out of the car and walked to the starting spot for the tour. She had a small umbrella and I had this large one, complete with a vented top layer and automatic opener.
As soon as I opened my umbrella and we started walking, she looked at me in a horrified manner and said, "You're not using that thing, are you? Really? I can't believe it!"
I looked at her quizzically and responded, "What thing — this?" as I gestured to the umbrella. "Yes, that umbrella. Please tell me you're not going to use that," she implored. "I'm already using it," I retorted. "What's wrong with it?"
She looked ahead as if refusing to be seen with me and replied, "Everything's wrong with it. I can't believe you would be using such a thing. Look at the colors. Your umbrella is for gay people since it has the rainbow colors."
My umbrella certainly was colorful. The eight large sections each featured a primary color of green, yellow, orange, red, violet, purple, blue and dark blue. It looked like a prism. "Gay people don't own the rainbow. I got this umbrella because I thought it was pretty. It beats a drab black one like I carried for years in my younger nun days."
"How can you be so blind to political correctness? You just can't carry an umbrella like that these days without making a statement," she offered exasperatedly. "And I think it's stopped raining. Good. Now we can put these umbrellas away. I hope I never see yours again."
A year later she moved away, so not only doesn't she see my umbrella but also we don't see each other anymore. That leaves me to use my lovely umbrella as I wish. On a rainy day I wonder who's even noticing me . . . and I really don't care.
[Nancy Linenkugel is a Sylvania Franciscan sister and chair of the department of Health Services Administration at Xavier University, Cincinnati Ohio.]