Today I Paid Ten Dollars for an Umbrella

This is why it so expensive to live in a city. Forget astronomical housing costs. Forget a tight, tight job market that allows employers to pay us far less than a) we deserve and b) we can afford. Forget, even, the fact that I’ve come to view $4 for a beer as a bargain. (Oh! Quarter Beers. Oh! $1 Well Drinks at the Feve. Oh! $1 PBR’s any-night-o-the-week.)

It’s because “convenience” stores like CVS can get away with charging $10 for an umbrella. A flimsy, useless umbrella that will either fly up with the first strong gust of wind or (more likely), I will misplace, as I have misplaced, within two weeks of purchase, every other umbrella I’ve ever bought.

And I paid it. How could I not? I was soaking wet and it’s expected to rain for days. And it’s not like I can easily make a trip to Target, or, hell, Walmart (a pox upon thee…though I’m beginning to understand the allure of, among other things, your cheap umbrellas.) Nope, I’m stuck with CVS and its $10 umbrellas.

Oh, I even shopped around. At the CVS in Jamaica Plain this morning, they wanted $15. I was stubborn. I stuck it out. I refused, on principle, to drop $15 on an umbrella, even if it was raining so hard I could barely see five feet in front of me and my hair was already a frizzy, sopping mess.

By the afternoon, on my lunch hour, the price had apparently dropped. (The rain, also, had let up a bit. Coincidence? I think not.) I gave in. Ten dollars! Ten dollars.

Slowly but surely, I’m being priced right out of the city. The one dollar cans of soda, dollar-seventy subway rides (thanks, MBTA!) and ten dollar umbrellas are adding up. A few more rainy weeks (and a few more ten-dollar-replacement-umbrellas), and I’m moving to the suburbs.










Just kidding.