A Hat Hunt

Sometimes it’s the little every day mundane things in life that are exciting. Something as simple as giving the dog a bath, pulling weeds, or trying to find an extra wide brimmed straw hat to cover your P.E. teacher husband's slightly larger than “normal” nose. It’s these little life moments that can turn into an adventure.

There’s no secret about it, Danny was blessed with a nose a little larger than average. He knows it. I know it. We all “nose" it. Despite the nose, Danny is a very handsome guy.  In fact, I think if his nose was perfect he would look too pretty…and make me feel less than worthy. Anyway on with the story…

Danny spends the majority of his day outside. Being a fair skinned P.E. teacher, he liberally applies the sun block and wears a hat when outside. Despite his sun blocking efforts, Danny’s poor little nose always seems to soak up the UVs.

This past Tuesday, I was off of work. As usual, Danny arrived home fairly late. He was tired and hungry from a long day of teaching and track practice. Danny’s usual routine is to shower, eat, and then promptly go to bed, as he has to wake up at an ungodly hour. Tuesday was different. Danny was on a mission, a mission to spend some quality time with his wife, and a mission to save his life (from skin cancer that is).

The hat hunt started with a trip to Lowes. Now when I say “extra large wide brimmed straw hat”, I’m not just talking about any old fishing/Australian outback hat. Danny wants a hat like an old Italian lady wears in her garden or a hat that Asian farmers are often depicted wearing. He wants extremely wide brimmed. Lowes was a natural choice for Danny, because they have a garden section.

When we arrived at Lowes, Danny promptly asked the garden section cashier if they had any straw hats. With a questioning eye, she said she didn’t think so. Unconvinced, we headed inside to further investigate. We looked by the gloves, the umbrellas, and the garden gnomes. No luck. Danny asked another person. She positively said no and told us to check Michaels. I think she may have thought I wanted to make an Easter hat or one of those crafty mop dolls with the little straw hats on it. I told Danny Michaels will not have what you are looking for.

We exited Lowes and I eyed World Market. I always call World Market, Cost Plus, as that is its former name.  They have changed the company name to put more emphasis on the “World Market.” My friend Christina said this is because they want to seem more “worldly.” I have to agree.

Since World Market has gone worldly, it seemed like a good idea to speed walk across the parking lot and take a gander. World Market is one of those stores that you go into with the intent of buying one item and come out with a handful of random imported goods that somehow seem necessary for your life to go on. No straw hats. However we did purchase some Columbian coffee, as Danny pointed out that we were getting low, as well as some mini, all natural, dried chorizo that we ate on the way back to the car. The “natural” chorizo had the eerily similar taste of a Slim Jim.

Danny decided Wal-Mart would be a good stop. I try to avoid Wal-Mart, especially the one on Sisk Road as much as possible. However I had to agree, Wal-Mart was bound to have a wide brimmed straw hat. We entered through the garden section, to avoid the smell and sounds of people eating a late dinner at McDonalds. We headed to the “boating/fishing” section. Over the tops of the isles I saw a straw hat. Like the McDonalds arches, I thought we were golden. My hopes were shattered when we saw that the brim was puny.

Surprisingly a Wal-Mart employee asked if we needed help. He pointed us back to boating/fishing or to somewhere by the fitting rooms. No such luck by the fitting rooms either. Of course by this time Danny had to use the restroom, and I was forced to wait by the McDonalds.

Next stop: Home Depot. I told Danny that if Lowes didn’t have them, Home Depot wouldn’t. Danny won, as it is his battle to fight. Once again we entered the garden section. We headed straight to the garden person and asked/begged for a straw hat. The young man looked perplexed, a little bit excited even. He said, “I don’t think so…we should…if we did I would wear one…that would be ‘B.A.’” Danny later said it took him a while to figure out what “B.A.” stood for. We discussed how it stood for “bad ass” and that he should probably know that just because you use the initials for something in the workplace when talking to a customer, it doesn’t make it professional. B.A. isn’t a good substitute for “bad ass.” Even though we had this discussion, I was glad he said it, so that we could have the discussion…

So the young man took us around to ask a young lady if they stocked them. The young lady told Danny he should go to Party City. Danny then tried to assure her it was not for a costume or a joke, but a serious life/death matter. Still not understanding, the young man then suggested saying it was Danny’s birthday and going to Chevys. We politely giggled, even though they did not understand the matter at hand.

We got in the car defeated. It was getting late. Danny said that if we hurried, we could make it to Bass Pro shop before closing. I sighed. He sighed. We sighed together. That was enough hat hunting for the night. I then told him that when he does find a straw hat to his liking, save the receipt, because it’s a tax write off. We drove home in defeat, our bellies full of questionable chorizo, and our hearts lacking a victory in the hat hunt.