Hats Off

LIAM AND MANHATTAN HAT

 I watch the fervent sale of the summer hats as we sip our Starbucks drinks. I am at my monthly meet up with my friend on Columbus and 67th, the celebrity Starbucks. The corner location is across from ABC studios and audience members of Kelly and Michael and The Chew come here before and after the shows. And the celeb guests walk by before and after the shows. They even have lockers here for storage. A good venue for a vendor. We have hats for sale on this June day. The hat guy is affectionately accosting pedestrians. If you look at a hat, it is on your head. From our enviable window seats we are part of the action as hat-deciding customers use our Starbucks glass front as a mirror. The stand is deep with racks of straw, hemp, rope and bendy cotton hats... trendy, artsy, beachy... a few Great Gatsby looks.


I watch for 2 and 1/2 hours. I have my hat picked out.  At the end of our session I announce I am stopping, looking and buying. My hat is still unsold. We leave and are absorbed into the tableau we have been observing.

He is a persuasive, passionate salesman; my friend and I are wearing hats before we can say a word.  Hat guy loves his products, bragging of their wonderful materials which are from a distant country, Zambia, I think he says. I point to my hat. It has ribbon, flowers, leaves and berries. I want it. Sixty nine dollars. What! No hat price on a street in NYC ends in a 9. That is a department store price. Street prices are clean with zeros. I stall. Try on others. I buy it. Wear it home feeling very Project Runway. Where are you Tim Gunn?

  

There is a smell. Liam knows.

Eucalyptus. 

Herbal. 

Medicinal.

Incense

Marijuana

It is my 69 dollar street hat. Is it the ribbon, flowers? Is it the hemp, rope, woven vine? Not a terrible smell but hardly mellifluous.If Liam will wear it even for a second it must be a worthy sniff. Liam tolerates it for a second or two. He is not a hat wearer. Not when a Kong stuffed bone is around.

 I put it in the freezer hoping the smell will be killed by the temperature. It thaws and becomes fragrant again. In July, I wear it to meet our friends for a city outing (the wifely half being my Starbucks friend)  I figure Manhattan and my malodorous hat will mix their smells. Sort of. I leave the hat in their car while we eat. It might permeate the restaurant. We part after dinner. I forget to retrieve it from their car. Hat goes home with them to Riverdale for a month. Friend and I meet at celeb Starbucks in August. No vendor. I had planned to confront him, hat in hand. A month in her car has not reduced the hat's odor. Still smells. That night I wear it to Crabtree's to ask opinions. All say it is the weave, the hemp. It is not so awful, they say. I ignore the hat for all of September. Maybe it takes time.
Today, I try again...No, as pungent as ever. Musty mixes in now also. Maybe it will lull Liam to stillness with its powerful scent. It does. Maybe I should sleep with it and ditch my klonopin. Its smell is sort of hypnotic. See Liam. No barking. Stillness.

Bad Hat

it is not such a great hat for protection.

its weave is loose and the sun comes through the holes

its brim is short and my nose is uncovered. Sunburn.

Good Hat

it repels insects like citronella

it calms Liam...works like a thundershirt

it provides a story

I will be looking for the vendor every month. He must know his hats are fragrant. He should add that to his sales pitch.
If anyone sees Hat guy, let me know...Meeting my friend tomorrow. Maybe I will store the hat in one of the Starbucks lockers.

There is a Friends episode that was on the other day at my health club. It is the one where Phoebe sings Smelly Cat...just substitute Smelly Hat and think of us

Woof Woof