Hats

I have the same routine every morning, as does my wife. She puts conditioner in her thick platinum blonde hair, fluffing the back and adjusting the curls in the front. Sometimes it can take her ten minutes. In contrast, I slap Lectric Shave on my face and head, sit on the edge of the bathtub with my Norelco battery powered razor in hand and in three minutes have my whole head shaved clean. It is not uncommon, on groggy mornings, for me to unconsciously remove an eyebrow or two also.

Now, for those of you who are chevelure, you may never have considered the differences between yourself and those of us who would be considered more glabrous. There is the obvious morning ritual and the time involved, namely the fact that since I am glabrous, I am spared the agony of the disheveled chevelure. Another thing you may not realize is that in the sun, the glabrous person must wear a hat to keep from getting sunburnt and in the winter the hat must be worn to keep the head warm. Cheryl, who is amply chevelure, can go out in any weather, including rain, and is perfectly fine. Her hair is so thick, we have yet to find the top of her scalp.

Being a man of great glabrousness, I have two hats which I favor, the broad rim Aussie and the black Army Ranger fatigue cap, the latter of which I have hanging from various hooks in my house. For the most part, I think that I am the only one in the county who wears one, so I am easily identifiable on CCTV tapes and in police lineups. I had little to no issues with wearing hats until I became a leader for the church high school group.

For some inexplicable reason, or it may be payback, if I wear one of my hats in the presence of the high school kids, it is grabbed off my head within the first three minutes of me entering the church. I then spend the rest of the evening trying to get it back. Usually, one of the kids who sympathizes with me will retrieve it before the evening is over and I remind myself not to wear the darn hat around the kids.

It’s not just the hats though. If I’m not wearing my hat they grab my phone, my pen, or my coffee mug. I just finished a five-day high school camp on the Oregon coast, and I became so hypervigilant, and gun shy around the kids I wouldn’t let them walk around my backside for fear they would steal something.

Sometimes it is possible to feel them touch the brim of my hat and I can swing around and grab an arm before they lift the hat off my head. Other times I have been able to outrun the thief and tackle him. Sometimes I can swipe the phone from the thief who stole my hat, and a trade is made for what belongs to me. It is when they team up and pass my hat like a giant game of keep away that I give up and let them have it. I always hated the game of Ultimate Frisbee. Hat stealing is obviously a sore subject for me. Actually, high school kids can be a sore subject for me also. This is why I reacted to the ostrich.

Cheryl and I were visiting friends in San Antonio, Texas. This is a wonderful city with their unique river walk and tour boats which move up and down the Venice type canals between the high-rise buildings. It is especially wonderful done at night during the Christmas season. San Antonio also has a series of missions to visit including the Alamo. Also, amazing to see during the Christmas season was Sea World.  They know how to decorate with colorful lights. The Natural Bridge Caverns take you deep in the earth to visit the underworld creatures of the area. Cheryl insisted they were trolls, but I corrected her that they were indeed Hobbits and were insulted by the misidentification.

We also went to two zoos, the San Antonio, and the local petting zoo, which was in an old auto dealership. I’ll have to admit that with their limited funds the petting zoo put together some nice displays. I went inside a fenced enclosure to bottle feed kangaroos only to have them instead chew my shoelaces off. There were creatures local to the area and many exotics from other countries, but all were available to get up close and personal with including turtles and alligators. All exhibits were monitored by cameras and roving staff.

It was when Cheryl and I stepped outside to look at the ostriches that my PTSD from the high school kids kicked in and my automatic reflexes reacted before my brain did.

Being in the hot Texas sun, I was wearing my Aussie hat to keep my glabrous head from getting torched. We walked out to the ostrich enclosure and there stood two of the curious feathered beasts. Their heads towered 9 feet above the ground. Their body weight was easily 320 pounds.

I guess I wasn’t concerned that the hog wire fence was the only thing that separated us, and that the height of the fence was only 6 feet tall. That left 3 feet of neck and head exposed over the top of the fence line. Don’t you think there would be signs warning the visitors about the temperament of the birds? Like maybe, Don’t get close to the fence, idiot! But no, I walked up to the fence, face to face with an ostrich.

They have the largest eyes of any bird in the world. Their feet and claws can easily stomp a predator to death when they protect themselves in the wild. The head on the end of their long necks is thinly covered in pin feathers and the way this one stared at me with its long, thick, beak reminded me strongly of a teacher I had in high school, though I don’t wish to name names.

We both stood one foot from each other separated by the fence. I mean, if it was a cobra or a tiger, I wouldn’t have got that close, but heck, this was just an overweight bird.

And then three things happened that I totally wasn’t prepared for: First, with the speed and accuracy of a prize fighter with long arms, its head shot across the top of the fence and grabbed my hat with its beak. My instincts were honed. My mind quickly flashed to the high school kids stealing my hat. Second, without thinking I reached up and wrapped my large left hand around the ostrich’s neck while at the same time trying to pull my hat away with my right hand. Third, an alarm went off in the yard from someone watching the CCTV. Apparently, the zoo staff frown on guests strangling their ostriches.

In the end, there was no harm done. I’m sure the ostriches have predators grab their necks all the time in the wild. I was prepared to ride that darn bird like a monkey on a wart hog, across the compound to get my hat back.

After being given free passes to come back another day, Cheryl and I left for the parking lot. I stumbled along in shoes without laces. Cheryl with her perfect chevelured head, face red from embarrassment, held my arm, and led me and my glabrous head with the crushed Aussie hat covered with ostrich spit, back to the car.

** Ostrich Photo by Nikita Voloshjn

Faith Family Life Getting Older Growing Up Misadventures Music Patriotism Pets or Pests? Serving Others Snips Tributes