It's Monday and it's raining.

I leave my office, w/o an umbrella, and in the course of walking 30 feet across the street to the deli, I encounter two different people selling umbrellas - 2 dollars. I did not see these people this morning, and if the rain has stopped, they will be gone when I go for coffee later today.

Where they come from, and where they disappear to, amounts to one of the enduring mysteries involved with living in this town. I have similar questions about pashmina sales people on 5th avenue and C.H.U.D's.

Do they all hang out when it's not raining? Can a hardworking umbrella person move up to a better corner or be permitted to sell the big umbrella with the sliding plastic covers that look like the cross between a milk bottle and a condom? These things occupy my drowsy evening hours.