Which Hat? (The Karianna Spectrum)

Nearly everyone has heard the expression about wearing many hats. I won't deny that I don't fit in that category: wife, mother, retired scientist, web-programmer, former dancer, fake runner*, gym mom, amateur photographer, blogger, and reality television addict. (Oh sure, there's more.) But actual hats?

Well... the field trip directions told me I had to bring "sunscreen and a hat" in preparation for driving energetic fourth-graders to a farm.

Ugh.

I mean, I'm not really a hat person. I'd love to be a hat person. There are adorable people in adorable baseball caps. I have cute ones from college, from hockey, and from graduate school. I even have one from Project Runway.

If I were a hat person, my wardrobe would be slammin'. But, I've tried beanies and berets, fedoras and feathers, and look like a fool.

I really wish I were one of those folks who could pull off a cowboy hat. You know, the soft kind that curls a bit. Those women are hot. Unless you aren't a hat person. Then you look like a dork with too much stuff on yer head.

The temperature has been disgustingly high this past week. And the farm is in an area that is typically at least 10 degrees higher than in our locale. I've had enough abnormal moles removed (even after not being a tan-addict and applying tons of sunscreen) to know that the hat-thing really was mandatory for ghostly-me.

But which hat?

My hats are meaningful to me in one way or another, and indicate some sort of figurative hat that I've worn as well. I don't own the generic hats that "everyone" wears, like for the local baseball team. Nope, my hats are for teams that I've played on, schools I've attended, or organizations that I've been a part of.

So what to advertise? ... without making it seem like I'm really "advertising?"

Any hat had a series of potential questions attached to it. And really, all I wanted was protection from the elements.

Sure, I was overthinking the whole thing. After all, I don't expect I must be the center of everyone's attention at all times. Just... that by selecting a hat to attend the farm, I'd be wearing something on my head for the first time in many years. It is as if I always wear dresses and were wearing jeans for the first time; or the opposite. (In fact, I started out the school year wearing more dresses than usual because of the hot weather and the desire to look a bit more "put together" than usual - and people kept asking me if i had just come from work or from a party - oops.) And so, selecting a single hat seemed like a much more momentous task than it should have been, unless I start regularly slapping one on my head, of course.

In the end, my choice turned out to be not because of what was written on it, but rather its color: white. (The other hats in reach were dark, which I really didn't need on a hot day.) Alas, its shape was dorky, but thankfully nobody found it necessary to inform me of that fact. Maybe because the words on the hat read "Dept of Surgery: I Will CUT You." OK fine, the hat really read "Cornell University Medical Sciences" - which was good enough for me, especially given that a fellow driver loves to boast about her particular educational credentials. Heh.

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* = My favorite email in quite awhile is when Mayberry Mom (in response to my protests that I'm not a "real runner") asked me what kind of fake runner I'd have to be to run in all the various ridiculous races I've done this year.