hats, hats, HATS!

the other week, lexi and i were at the mall together for some reason or another. she was looking at something boring like pantyhose, so i told her i would be in accessories when she was done. well, when she showed up a few minutes later, i ran at her, overjoyed, wearing the hat on the left [this picture really does not do justice to how horrible this hat is], and waving jazz hands with a pair of fuzzy hot pink gloves on each hand (i say a ‘pair of’ b/c the way the gloves are paired together, you had to stick one hand in each pair, leaving the other glove dangling off. as tho i didn’t look silly enough.)

anyways, lex and i spent the next 20 minutes putting on hats and scarves and sunglasses and hideous belts and just loving it. she explained to me that when she was a child, her mother hated going to department stores with her b/c she would wander off to the accessories department and try on 18 things at a time, embarrassing her mother and wasting her time. if there were ever any doubts that lexi and i were meant to find one another, that story erased them. during this time, lexi found a hat with pink feathers stuck all over it. it is the kind of hat that few would love. fewer would look good in it. lexi looked perfect in it. she bought it the next day for $23.98, down from $100, but later returned it in a fit of guilt.

so now we are at today. i run some errands at the mall, then head to dick's sporting goods where i bump into aaron and lexi. i mention that i have just bought a foxfields hat and she and i start to reminisce about our fedoras. our hideous, hot pink and blue fedoras, made of 100% paper and retailing for $4.98, as of our last visit. we realize that we MUST return to buy our hats. we figure that we will take aaron with us, as the voice of reason. this, of course, will not matter at all b/c we have a far more fool-proof system.

in this system, you pick the upper limit you will pay for the hat. in the dick's parking lot, i say we will buy the hats if we are under $3. so we go. we spend 20 minutes trying on hats, while aaron looks like he wants to shoot either himself, or the two of us. i'm sure it's bad enough to have lexi, but when you have lexi times two, meaning there is another lexi to encourage the real lexi to BUY the hats, well i'm sure that's even worse.

so our fedoras are still marked at $4.98, and aaron says we are not allowed to buy them, but i know this cannot possibly be true. that is when we meet someone who is more of an enabler than lexi and i combined--the sweet-looking sales lady. i am talking loudly to lexi about the price of the hat and how we will have to have it price-checked, which the sales associate does w/o our asking, pronouncing the hats to be only $2.98. THAT'S UNDER $3! WE CAN BUY THE HATS!

of course, do we really need these hats? we have to think of all the things we could conceivably do with them. feb club, obviously. be britney spears, duh. or make ourselves t-shirts that say "laura and lexi's crazy hat day" and wear them around the law school for fun. BRILLIANT! (of course, do we want it to be 'crazy hat day' or 'funny fedora day' or 'hideous hat day' or something else entirely? this is the question with which i am now left to grapple.) that is it. the hats are ours.

while aaron winces, we each put out the $3.13 for our beautifully hideous new fedoras. the enabling sales lady explains that we have not just spent $3, but that we have saved $17. how right she is.

then i see the pink feathered hat, calling out to lexi. i must make the hat talk to her and tell her how much it misses her. i say she has to buy it if it is less than $15 now. she says $10. the enabler does a price check. $9.98!!! aaron looks like he's about to shoot both of us and the sales associate. he had thought he was rid of this hat, but here we are, bringing it back into his home. he had managed to talk me out of a hot pink number for $4.98, but this was an uphill battle. forunately, lexi does have a streak of practical in her body--to what will she wear this hat? unfortunately, i have already decided we are all going to spring foxfields this year.

so now, for $20, we have 4 hats between the two of us--one foxfields hat per person, and one hideous turquoise fedora each. what a day it has been!! if you see a hideous turquoise fedora wandering thru bar review tonight, don't be surprised.