It was raining in Seattle yesterday. Not that unusual, given that this is the rainy season. This particular rain event, as they are called, will soon move on to the midwest, undoubtedly spinning up into a tumult that spawns tornadoes and other such horrors never seen here in the great Northwest.
Rain in Seattle is much better than rain in Florida. There, the weather gods pour buckets of the stuff from the skies around four in the afternoon, and since most Floridians don’t own rain coats, you have no choice but to get caught up in an afternoon monsoon of biblical proportions.
In Seattle, it just mists a lot. Sure, it drizzles, too. Occasionally it even rains, sending drops down in such quantities that you actually have to think about buttoning your rain coat, if you remembered to wear one.
A true Washingtonian, I rarely button my coat. The weather never really challenges me to, at least the rain part. If I do secure a button or two, it’s either because of a really cold day (must drop below 40 degrees for me) or the wind is blowing.
Rain is not a big deal in Seattle, at least to a native. It’s only notable to those who didn’t grow up here.
We can tell who you are by the way. If you didn’t grow up in the Pacific Northwest, chances are very, very good that you have an umbrella. Yes, we do have a huge three-day music festival called Bumbershoot. It’s our little joke, since the festival is held on what has traditionally been one of the nicest three-day weekends of the year, Labor Day.
There is only one place that you will find umbrellas in any number here. That is the lost and found at Metro. As every Metro bus knows, true Northwesterners shouldn’t have umbrellas. So busses silently slip your umbrella between the seats during your ride, and eventually it ends up in lost and found.
A little advice to visitors. If you really feel compelled to use an umbrella, don’t bring one. Just stop by Metro’s lost and found department downtown. Tell them you lost your umbrella and they will haul out several boxes of them. One of the collapsible kind in black, one of collapsible colored, and then the more traditional type.
Nothing says “non-native” or “tourist” more than a fully deployed umbrella. The larger the better. On my walk to work the other day, I encountered a gentleman whose umbrella was so big we could have used it to turn CenturyLink Field into a domed stadium. He was the only one under it, shielded from a light mist that didn’t even warrant the snapping of a single coat clasp.
The umbrella blocked most of the sidewalk. It was nearly impossible to get around this gent without stumbling into the street, risking being hit by bumbershoot-hoarding buses.
As I looked down the streets as I walked, I could count the non-locals. There were a total of five out of the 50 or so people I encountered. Some locals did wear hats; but most had no covering whatsoever, not even bothering to pull up their hood, which is standard equipment on nearly every coat sold in Washington State.
They are, after all, the best invention ever. Unlike an umbrella, you never have to carry a hood. It never gets left behind on the bus or in the library, and you never have to figure out where to lean it at lunch. It is ever present, but never in the way. It is the perfect piece of apparel for those who actually think they need to shield themselves from the rain.
I admit that are times when I “hood up.” It takes quite a bit of rain to go into hood mode, but I have done it. And here’s another tip for visitors. If you do decide to go native and only bring a coat with a hood, don’t wear the hood inside. Say you’re simply walking through a building and it’s raining on either side. Pull the hood down before walking into the building. The same is true of public transportation. As soon as you breach the door of the bus, pull the hood down; or better yet, drop it just before you board and bitch about the rain outside.
Nothing says rookie more than not hooding up correctly in Seattle. Only criminals keep their hoods up.
O.K., there is one thing more rookie than incorrect hooding and that is, of course, having an umbrella. The only person that should ever have an umbrella is the Caped Crusader’s nemesis, the Penguin. He looks cool with an umbrella, largely because it can also shoot sleeping gas. I admit that if they could come up with an umbrella that did this, I would actually buy one. It would come in real handy on the bus.
But as for umbrellas, there are none in my house and never will be. I have only one coat with a hood on it. It is for the really rainy days. True to the eternal optimism of the people who live here, I have four other coats, non capable of hooding up in an unexpected rain event.
Why is this so? First, there’s no such thing as an unexpected rain event in Seattle. It’s always expected. And when the skies do part, even for a moment, we celebrate; relishing the fact that we really didn’t need to take the rain coat. Our unhooded fashion statement (we wear coats as fashion, not protection here), is suddenly in all its glory, unbuttoned and billowing in the breeze, allowing us to show everyone that we are fashion forward and even a bit mystical, all because deep down we knew it wasn’t going to rain. Drizzle or mist, perhaps, but not rain.
My advice? Unless you’re Mary Poppins or Gene Kelly, leave the umbrellas at home. Don’t draw attention to yourself, even more important, don’t block our way on the sidewalk. It never ends well. Just ask the guy with the stadium dome. On second thought don’t bother. I can’t remember which alley I left his battered remains in.
In the Emerald City, going with the hood optional coat today,
– Robb