To insure yourself, you need an umbrella

“I definitely need an umbrella.” I kept repeating these words to myself as I ran like a desperado in the pouring rain.

I had no escape, the water seemed to come from every direction. It reached me from above, as was normal for the force of gravity; it hit me from below, bouncing on the asphalt, splashing my shoes; it wet my face, carried by the wind, so much so that I was forced to dry it continuously, just as I was forced, after the first few minutes of running in the rain, to take off my glasses and put them first in their case, then in the inside my backpack.

“I would need an umbrella.” I found myself saying that phrase out loud in the hope, perhaps, that someone would hear it and decide to come to my rescue. Not that I needed much, of course. An umbrella would have been enough for me. Yes, an umbrella, a very banal and normal umbrella, like many that I had seen, refusing to purchase, on the stalls at the entrance or exit of the metro.

I looked around, instinctively, as if under that leaden sky, there was at least one of those street vendors capable of providing me with what I needed… Nope. Once I finally got into the car I realized that I was much more squeezable than I thought I was.

It was precisely at that moment that I remembered the exchange with one of those stallholders. “Doctor, do you want two umbrellas for the price of one? Come on Dottò, take two, so you leave one at home and keep one in the car.” “But no – I replied – look at the sun there. What do I do with two umbrellas? And then it almost never rains.”

“Doctor – the other immediately replies – but when do you put petrol in the car when it’s already run out and when do you go for a run when you can’t take it anymore while before you wanted to keep in shape. Doctor, keep these umbrellas, sooner or later you’ll need them… It’s like insurance against the rain and with these you’ve already won.”

But I said no, and today I find myself without an umbrella, without rain insurance coverage and completely soaked.