Adventures in Pointless Polling: Replacing Lost Umbrella Etiquette

[HVC]

This is a pretty trivial incident, stuff happens and things get lost, no one is at fault and people buy another one.

The guy was being an idiot, but the upside for you is he's gave you a clear window into his soul, he's an accountant isn't he ??

[Richard Hakluyt]

Umbrellas never really belong to an individual, they just stay with us a while and then move on. Left in a waiting room, on a train.........sometimes strange umbrellas will appear in one's home; in which case we simply have to be grateful that they are not made with a magenta fabric covered in turquoise polka dots. Which is probably the style of umbrella you should have bought for him as a replacement 

[Syt]

That's the reason I don't have umbrellas anymore. I've easily lost a dozen over the years (one even twice!), and broke countless more.

Also, it's usually too windy in Vienna to make good use of an umbrella.

[Eddie Teach]

One of you should have expensed it.

[Pedrito]

Umbrellas never really belong to an individual, they just stay with us a while and then move on. Left in a waiting room, on a train.........sometimes strange umbrellas will appear in one's home; in which case we simply have to be grateful that they are not made with a magenta fabric covered in turquoise polka dots. Which is probably the style of umbrella you should have bought for him as a replacement 

Very Adamsesque, very true.

On topic, the guy's a dick: I would never ask for a replacement.

L.

[Gups]

It's a fucking umbrella. They cost less than a pint. The fact that you even feel the need to ask whether the guy is a douche makes me suspicious about you.

[derspiess]

I thought you were in Bolivia recently.  Or was that someone else?  There are parts of St.Louis that are pretty much a third world country.

Nope--I posted about potentially going there, but I've never been and not going in the foreseeable future.

I like St. Louis.

Ah, that was it.  Don't ever go to East St. Louis.

Yeah.  The part in the movie "Vacation" where the Griswolds get lost in East St. Louis is all one needs to see to get a feel for that place.

"Roll 'em up!" 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwBoa-NbNL8

[Jacob]

It's a fucking umbrella. They cost less than a pint. The fact that you even feel the need to ask whether the guy is a douche makes me suspicious about you.

Don't be too harsh. He obviously knows, he's just putting it as a question as a rhetorical technique to introduce it as a topic of conversation.

[alfred russel]

It's a fucking umbrella. They cost less than a pint. The fact that you even feel the need to ask whether the guy is a douche makes me suspicious about you.

So you weren't made suspicious by the fact I frequent languish until this thread? That makes me wonder about you...

[alfred russel]

It's a fucking umbrella. They cost less than a pint. The fact that you even feel the need to ask whether the guy is a douche makes me suspicious about you.

Don't be too harsh. He obviously knows, he's just putting it as a question as a rhetorical technique to introduce it as a topic of conversation.

Coming clean: this happened about 2 years ago. I was coming home from something last night where I got a free umbrella, which made me think of this. It seemed like a good topic to have a discussion about on Languish.

[Martinus]

The ideal scenario is that he does not ask you to buy him a new umbrella, but that you make it up to him somehow - either by actually buying a replacement umbrella or some drinks or otherwise extending goodwill towards him.

When he asks for you to replace the umbrella he's being a bit of a putz, and you are occupying the moral high ground by replacing in.

Conversely, if he did not ask for a replacement but merely confirmed that the umbrella was lost he would've occupied the moral high ground; you would then be a bit of a putz if you did nothing to make it up to him.

I agree with the Ponytailed One.

[Scipio]

How many business trips to do you do a year?

It depends. Last year it was a lot, now it is less. 

You always seem to be visiting some third world hell hole, Bolivia, Morocco, Mississippi...  yeesh.

I've never been to Bolivia, and I think the only time I posted about being in Mississippi was with Lettow.

You may not believe this, but the umbrella incident was actually in Saint Louis. 

St. Louis is the chocolate starfish of America.