The Missing Link

This is my absolute favorite hat.



I came to acquire this hat in 10th grade. One of my classmates, who I had a slight crush on, was a skater and wore all kinds of different hats to school each day. We had English class together, and he sat right beside me. (Be still, my heart!) One day he left his hat (that said "Acme" on it - and nothing more) in his desk, and I rescued it. Later, I told him that I was going to hold his hat for ransom, and he generously offered me a different hat if he could have his Acme hat back.

I couldn't believe he wanted to trade his boring Acme hat for the awesome Missing Link hat, which had a human being, a monkey, and an alien on it. Blah - he was boring, obviously. It's a good thing nothing ever came of that.

So that's how I came to own my Missing Link hat. It's one of the only items of clothing/accessories that has lasted me waaaaaay after high school. I hardly ever wear it these days, but back when I worked at Chili's, I wore it each time I worked in the back gathering all the food together and sending it out. As a result, it's extremely dirty and worn.

I wore my Missing Link hat today for the first time in quite awhile. It seems appropriate to wear it while moving, as I usually need something to hold my hair back. Come to think of it, I usually wear it each time I move. Back before I became a responsible adult, I'd wear it on road trips. I'd drive for hours with the windows down, music blaring, my hat on backwards, sipping a big ol' Dr. Pepper and smoking a bazillion cigarettes.

My Missing Link hat seems to be the perfect thing to illustrate my youth, my crush on some poor, unsuspecting boy, and my theory that I haven't grown up too much despite all that's happened since high school.



I miss those days sometimes. Life was overwhelmingly simple, but I didn't realize it at the time.