Hat with Occasional Lyrics

If you suspect I ripped off the title of this post from a Jonathan Lethem novel and then reconfigured it so it would appear as though I didn't rip off the title of this post from a Jonathan Lethem novel, you are correct.

Recently, I was walking down Belmont Avenue, eastward, to the lake, where I dock my yacht. I was wearing my cowboy hat because that's what one wears when one approaches a docked yacht, and as I was crossing Halsted, I noticed a tall, handsome man standing on the corner. He was still while others scrambled around him and if I didn't know that the city owned that corner, I would've assumed he did.

He wore a brown pin-striped suit, perfectly tailored, a blue tie knotted at his throat, and a pink bowler hat. Like, Bazooka bubble gum pink.I was impressed. The I-own-this-corner posture, the impeccably-fitted suit, THE PINK HAT.

As I walked up to him, what could I do but smile hugely? Own it dude, which I of course did not say because that is not something you say to a dude who is actually already owning it, and he caught my eye and we had A Moment. A Hat Moment.

He smiled broadly (perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth)(of course) and tilted his chin at me. "I like your hat," he said. "I like YOUR hat," I said. And there we were, on the corner of Belmont and Halsted, him in his pink bowler, me in my cowboy hat, sharing a moment that we would not have had if we were not wearing hats. It is a lesson to all, I'd say. Peace through hats. For the record, I was also wearing clean underwear, which is just as important as wearing a hat, but not as obvious, unless you want it to be.