Pages

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

A One Hat Woman

Dear San Diego Hat Company,

A couple of years ago my husband gave me a hat made by you. He got it from Pangaea here in Nashville. It was gray and soft with a short bill and some very faint stripes on it. I think it might have been a wool blend. It was the best hat ever. I wore it all the time. If I find something I like, I stick with it for eternity. Take the belt I'm wearing, for example. I got it eight or nine years ago, I think, and I wear it with everything. It's black with red stars on it. It goes with everything. It does. I swear.

My gray hat went with everything. I've never seen one like it anywhere. I got innumerable compliments on it, too. It went with me. It was me.

And I seem to have lost it. I wore it the last time I went to get my hair cut a few days ago, and I must have dropped it while walking through the parking lot. My heart is broken. I don't see one in your catalog, but it was kind of a tiny bit like CTH1756. I am hoping you have one laying around a warehouse or a closet or something and that you'll contact me when someone gets a second to tell me whether or not you've got one.

I will pay infinite dollars for it because that's how much I love that hat, and if you ask for it, I'll try to scrounge it up, because I'll be honest with you, I'm just a low-paid editor at a publishing company. But that's how attached I am to that hat. I have no other hats. I'm a one-hat woman. If you don't have that particular hat, I know I'll end up searching for the rest of my life for a replacement, and I know, deep down, that I'll never find a substitute and will forever be unsatisfied in the head-gear department. There will be a hole in my heart in the shape of that soft, gray hat.

When I lose something I love, I never stop looking for it, I never cease to miss it, like my Birkenstock sandal that went down the creek when I was 17. It was the right foot. Have I replaced my Birkenstocks? Nope.

In summary, I will forever be loyal to this hat and to you, San Diego Hat Company. Thanks for making/designing good hats. I apologize for not knowing the style number for the hat I'm talking about. I have some pictures of me wearing the hat if you need to see them to know which one I'm looking for.

Thanks,

Nicole Grotepas

2 comments:

scooter said...

That tale wrenched my heart. I'm so sorry for your loss!

Nicole said...

Thanks Scooter. Sadly, San Diego Hat Company never responded to my email. They must have thought it a joke. Or perhaps they were really busy making more cool hats and brokering deals with the wool-makers of Scotland and Wales. Or maybe they're still digging through their closest looking for my old hat.

I gave up, however, and found a replacement hat. It will never be as great as my old hat, nor will it have the sentimental value of its predecessor, but it will do. And it will cover my hair on bad hair days or when the humidity is so heavy that my hair turns into a frizz-bomb.