The umbrella is utilitarian, easy to use and even easier to lose.

How many times do we look in vain for our little black foldout, dash to the drugstore mid-downpour to buy another one, only to leave it at a store or restaurant once the sun comes out?

For the forgetful-prone, it is a vicious cycle of buying and losing and buying umbrellas.

"The $3 portable umbrella is not a regular thing you carry," said Michael Solomon, a Baltimore writer and school administrator who wrote the book, "How to Find Lost Objects."

"It is really something extra. When you get where you are going, and you are out of the rain, you think, 'I am finally inside. I am dry.' You put your umbrella down. You say, 'I will be right back.' "

But of course, you get distracted and forget the umbrella.

A self-described "findologist" who gives people tips for relaxing, slowing down and recalling where they left something, Mr. Solomon figures he has lost five or six portable umbrellas over the years but never worries because he only pays $3 for them.

"My trick is to have six umbrellas," he said. "I try not to care about losing them."

In fact, he views umbrellas as so expendable that they are almost part of public common property. "It is like pens and pencils. I will loan them to people at work. If they return them to me, great. If they don't, that is OK."

He also will borrow one and return it. "Why would anyone begrudge you an umbrella?" In the middle of a downpour?" he asks.

"No one is really that attached to their umbrella. But they get peeved when they can't find it at the right moment."

Mr. Solomon's figures that umbrellas are one of the top 10 lost items, trailing things people use every day such as keys, cell phones and Palm Pilots. His book, which was once published by Penguin and now available free online at www.professor-solomon.com, has a photo of him carrying an umbrella.

Presumably, it's one he just found.