This summer I bought myself a new hat.
I’m not usually a clothes-buying person, much less hat-buying. Part of this is because clothes cost money, and I don’t have a lot of disposable income. But even if I had cash laying around waiting to be spent, I’m just not one of those people who worries about wearing the latest style. My motto could be “If it works, use it.” I will shamelessly take clothes that other people are discarding. In some ways I find it appalling that so many good jeans–without any holes–can be discarded. I will save more jeans than I could possibly wear because the ones I am wearing will (eventually) wear out, and who wants to let some perfectly usable jeans slip by when sometime in the future I could use them? It makes my little frugal heart gleeful to take in a haul of jeans–to think of how much money I saved! Who cares if most of the jeans are a little big around the middle–that’s what belts are for–or if they’re a little long–just hem them up.
Hats, similarly, are something I take because another has discarded. Whether it is a wool winter hat or a baseball cap, there is always something for me to save from the trash. Over the years these hats have served me well, but recently I began to realize that I could do better. A baseball cap serves its purpose, but it leaves the ears and the neck unprotected. Without sunblock the unprotected ears and neck end up quite burned from the summer sun.
Previously, I had waged a continual battle against sunburn by applying sunblock to the exposed areas. This worked–when I remembered and when I made time to apply the sunblock. Invariably, sometimes I wouldn’t and then I would end up very burned, which is not comfortable. Also, I very much dislike wearing sunblock. Sunblock is slimy and applying it feels something like rubbing butter onto my arms. It leaves me feeling in need of a shower. The sunblock I put on my neck is always the worst. When I sweat it runs down my back.
For years I’ve been stuck in the cycle of applying sunblock, then not applying and getting burned. I wanted some way out of this, and I saw my answer in a Duluth Trading Company catalog. They sell all sorts of nifty things, most of which are far too expensive for me to do anything but dream about, but one hat in particular caught my eye. It was a wide brim hat with a mesh top that could, supposedly, be crushed and it would still return to its original shape. Light, cool, and “indestructible”, this hat looked like the perfect solution to my problem.
The one snag was that it was a little pricey for someone who does not willingly purchase any type of clothing, hat or otherwise. But I thought about wearing sunblock all summer, and I thought about getting sunburned. Then I decided to consider it a worthy long-term investment.
The hat arrived at the beginning of this summer and I’ve had plenty of time to test it out. Over all, it has been an excellent investment. The wide, full brim offers plentiful shade and excellent sun protection. One small problem is that the size I purchased is slightly too big, so the brim settles a little low on my head. This is better than the hat being a little too small, and most of the time it is no trouble at all. The only time it begins to bother me is when I need to do a lot of looking up–a situation where it does begin to feel as if it is riding down in my vision. One other occasional problem is that the hat, with its wide brim, is an air trap. This can be nice if the goal is to keep cooler air trapped down near your head. However, sometimes when I start working really hard, I find that I’m giving off so much heat the hat ends up being something like a smothering blanket trapping my own stifling heat close to my body. I’ve found myself taking my hat off to allow some fresh air to circulate around my face and head.
The purchase was a good investment, but it has brought me no closer to mainstream society. Very few people wear a wide brim hat and going out into public sporting a hat with a 3-inch brim attracts looks and comments. I look strange, certainly. Goofy, even. I sort of think of it as nerdy in an outdoor way. Office nerds wear pocket protectors–outdoor nerds wear huge, wide-brim hats. When not stared at, or mistaken for Amish on the loose, there is always some envy. It seems that if the reaction is not “I wouldn’t be caught dead in that hat!” then it is “Hey! Cool! Where did you get a hat like that!”
Teman bought the exact same hat at the same time as me, and Lachlan received one for his birthday as well. Arlan joked that it was becoming the standard uniform. One person with a large hat can be glossed over, or written off as an anomaly. But a whole bunch wearing huge hats . . . people would begin to wonder. The mischievous part of me thinks everyone in the family ought to get one just so we can have a laugh seeing people trying to figure out why all of us are wearing such big hats.
(One note in conclusion: Apparently Duluth has switched manufacturers for the hat I purchased. I feel that the new hat is of inferior quality to the one I have, though it still probably serves its purpose well enough. The newer version is more grey in color rather than the straw color of mine, and it is also less rigid in shape.)
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