My Strange Desires (PART 2)

**NOTICE** Since I have neglected to update in quite some time, I thought that I would do something a little different to shake things up a bit. For the next few posts, I will be hand-drawing all of the cartoon panels. Enjoy! --- (This post is part of a three-part series. You'd probably have a better idea of what's going on if you started at the beginning: bit.ly/107WvFh)


Back in grade school, my school used to host a yearly "fun festival" as it was called. It was sort of like a big outdoor party before summer break began and it was easily the best day of the school year. Water balloon fights, a lot of soda, face-painting, pieing-in-the-face, confetti eggs, and rock climbing were just a few of the many activities that took place at this fair. Of course this festival was just a big fund-raiser for the school, so in order to do any of the activities you'd have to buy a bunch of tickets, probably at a stupid price (I wasn't the one paying so it didn't matter to me). You could either use these tickets for all of the stuff aforementioned, or you could try using them to them to earn special colored tickets that could purchase prizes that the standard tickets couldn't... which brings me to strange obsessive phase #2.

Each year during this festival, a certain system ran through my mind. I don't remember how accurate this system was, but basically the thought was who ever was wearing/holding the most crap purchased with the colorful tickets, the higher rank they were on the "awesome" scale. And I can certainly tell you that the kid holding the inflatable electric guitar and wearing the rainbow stovepipe hat was the most awesome child, to ever have graced my presence, at that specific moment in time.

 

Well I guess I had missed my chance because the festival was starting to wind down and my family and I were about ready to start heading home, right? Heck no! I immediately flipped around and pushed through the crowd that was attempting to exit the school-grounds, nearly tripped over the hotdog guy, and found myself standing in the gymnasium; the prize room; the cave of wonders. I casually strolled over to the prize counter like nothing was going on, when inside I was dying of excitement over the fact that I was about to look that much more amazing.

I guess it never did occur to me that I only had about 20 colored tickets in my possession when in reality, about all that could get you was a plastic spider ring or a Chinese finger trap made out of straw. Not until I asked the lady at the counter how much one of the hats cost did I realize that I was virtually broke in the ticket realm. She replied with a heart-sinking "75 tickets" and then strengthened the blow with "this is our last one." Realizing that I had been defeated, I bought myself a deck of cards and sulked to the car.

The fact that the stovepipe hat in all of its glory just barely slipped through my fingertips was apparently not in itself a depressing enough thought for me. Nope, not until I envisioned Awesome Kid walking in front of me, flaunting his rainbow floppy hat around on loop, was my brain satisfied with its misery. Over dramatic? Just imagine if you almost had the chance to walk around like a floppy rainbow Dr. freakin' Seuss all over the place. I bet you'd blog about it too... or not. Whatever.

Sometime between the mix of unpacking my backpack, eating dinner, doing the dishes, and getting used to the fact that school had just gotten out, my mother decided to bring to my attention the fact that there is such a thing as the internet, which just so happens to be a source that contains all things in the known universe; stupid looking hats included. For some reason there was always this connection in my mind that said if you could see it physically, in person, then it was able to be purchased. Not once did it occur to me "well that's okay, I can always just search up the hat and find a price for it on the intertangles of the computer universe." Also, a side note that was equally enlightening was the fact that my mom was the person to suggest anything about the hat in the first place, not me. But obviously there was no time for any sort of comprehension at this precise moment because a decision of my mom's that was this sporadic had the danger of being second-guessed at any given point in time. I had to act quick.

I rushed her over to her computer and immediately started scrolling through the pages and pages of stovepipe hats that flooded the monitor. Red, blue, grey, yellow, purple, and green striped. The list of colors went on but I never did see a rainbow one. The rainbow one. The one hat that somehow had the ability to posses all of the universe's awesomeness in one tall array of cheaply stitched felt. I started to ponder whether or not I should just choose a different color scheme since there were obviously plenty to choose from. But then I saw it. Not the rainbow stovepipe hat*, but a different hat. A better hat. Not even a stovepipe hat at all, but a hat so amazing, that it was a wonder how I ever could have managed to even physically exist without owning one...

...TO BE CONCLUDED


*Note: I did eventually end up getting a rainbow stovepipe hat, but it happened a couple of years later. One of the ladies at the prize counter was nice enough to sell it to me for 40 tickets! Score! (I haven't worn it since)