The Tale of the Umbrella

I passed my French test! And officially finished my French class...

But before I get to that, a quick side note: My HIMYM post is delayed by a day, since my DVR didn't record the entire show from last night. Luckily, the video of Monday's episode is online; Check back tomorrow afternoon for that review.

And another side note: the story of the umbrella.

When I left work at 5, the rain was pouring. I don't usually carry an umbrella on rainy/cloudy days. For one, all three of my umbrellas are broken due to all the wind tunnels in Chicago. Secondly, during the 5:00 commute in Chicago, the sidewalks are packed, and one of my biggest pet peeves are people who have no sense of where their umbrella is and who, therefore, run into me with their umbrella. I get it, I'm short, you don't always see me, but come on.

So, I was hesitant to take one of the many umbrellas from the office. I don't want to be poking anyone's eyes out. And the umbrellas, decorated with the office logo, are ginormous; they're too big even for really tall people, seriously.

But, it was pouring, and my bag was so full with French books and a hard copy of "Eclipse" (yeah, I gave into reading "Twilight") that I couldn't completely close my purse. I didn't want my beloved books getting wet!

I stepped outside, hovered under the eaves and tried popping open the umbrella. But, I raised the little lever thing too high, and the umbrella flipped open backwards, as if the wind had popped it open the wrong way. Since the umbrella was so large, I was struggling with hanging on to my over-sized purse and trying to wrap my arms around the umbrella to push it back down.

Luckily, three people, just leaving my office building, stopped to help. It took all four of us to wrangle the umbrella down - but we did it, and I was on my way to French.

I was cautious in how I held the umbrella, raising it high when walking by tall people. The umbrella handle was long enough, that 5'4" me was able to raise it high enough to let 6'+ people pass under it.

And then, not even halfway into my walk, the rain stopped.

And then I had French class, where I passed with flying colors, which was recognized with a fake French passport to document which classes I take (and pass).

The only thing worth mentioning about the class (I won't talk about my nervousness over a test that I had little problems with) was the oral presentation. We wrote about a celebrity, about what they were like, where they lived, etc., and then read it aloud to the class, trying to get everyone to guess who we had written about.

I gave the clue, Il aime opera avec "muppets."

He loves opera with muppets.

Guess who?

No one in my class guessed.

Can you?

If you're an HIMYM fan, you should know. Or if you've seen his movie, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," you should know.

Yeah, that's right. Jason Segel.

Off to watch last night's episode of HIMYM.