Not quite Perfect

Trying to find parking near Hippodrome Hatters was distressing. The heat, pollution from exhaust fumes, and lumbering armored cars made the "up and back down and around" the one way streets irritability-inducing. Finally Karen just parked right in front of the store with her hazzards on while I went inside.

Earlier in the week when I spoke to the proprietor on the telephone he told me that he only had a few winter fedoras, all in extra large. This nearly discouraged me from going at all, because I felt that that size would be too big. I was delighted to see (when I finally made it into the store) that there were several types of brown fedoras in various sizes, now I simply had to take on the task of envisioning Gordon's head and intuiting what would be best (a rouse with which I had enlisted Sarah's help earlier in the week yielded no information on which to base a hat size for him).

The proprietor's nagging, overtly rude wife helped me. She was put out with my "show me some hats that correspond to medium and large" routine. She was belligerent about the fact that I needed to know a size, especially since these winter hats are final sale items.
The best part was my trying to explain to her that this hat was a gift for a friend and I couldn't just ask him outright, and she said "well I hope he's a very good friend." (This after I also explained that no, I did not have access to other hats of his, since NO, we do not live together.)

The hat that I felt the strongest pull toward was not the one I'd called about specifically (I'd seen it online). The hat that sang to my senses was a sensual chocolate brown, with an understated feather on the right side, expertly crafted, and the inside was satin. In other words a man's hat. The 40.00 piece of junk I called about looked as though it should sell for far less, so I paid a bit more than I was expecting to, but I couldn't not buy the hat I knew Gordon would love.

So on a wing and prayer I paid for the large (after trying it on myself a few times, and trying to guage from how much room I had in it, if it would fit G or not).

Karen, finally finding a legitimate parking spot, came in just as I was about to complete the transaction, and the lady proprietor's attitude toward me shifted on a dime. Karen, immediately upon seeing the hat, proclaimed it perfect, and I said "I think he will love it." The woman behind the counter started to smile at me, and compliment me on my excellent speaking voice, and wondered what I did for a living. Suddenly I was a person of intelligence, with white friends, maybe even buying a hat for a white man, who could afford to buy this top of the line fedora... I have never seen such a distinct shift in paradigms in all of my life. Not in a scenario like this one. Karen not only legitimized me in this woman's eyes, she legitimized my taste in hats!

I felt so proud of myself for the rest of the day. Carrying that hat box gave me such a feeling of accomplishment; I'd pulled off something that I'd only started planning the week before. It is not easy trying to buy a winter hat during the Summer months in Baltimore City--that's my object lesson in all of this.

G came over at 8, and opened his present shortly after. This is where a new level of anxiety crept in. I knew the hat might not fit; It was a risk since no exchanges or refunds would be allowed.

He was very expressive in his gratitude, pronounced it one of the best gifts he'd been given in a long time, told me how thoughtful I was, and then tried it on, and looked in the mirror. He can wear it, but it's not a perfect fit. Slightly larger would have been better. That's when I had to tell him that the sale was final, and he quickly rebounded and said that it was fine, because he still loved it, and couldn't wait for winter so he could wear it all the time...

But the lack of perfection is a blight on my landscape this morning. I dreamt about this hat and trying to make it right all night.

It doesn't help that our evening felt far less date-like than our last interaction, and the coffee shop we went to was too loud to really talk after a while, and I didn't feel like shouting so I talked less than I would have normally. On his way to my place, he actually ran into some friend of his which made him a few minutes late, and he invited this person to come and hang out with us at the One World if he felt like it. The guy never came (which I didn't think he would), but that let me know that I am always a friend and never more.

So, on the one hand the evening was nice because when we did talk it was good, and he loved the present, and he picked up cicadas to show me just how harmless they really are in that they do not bite or sting (I was still too chicken to pick one up, even after G cajoled), but on the other hand when he left my apartment, I knew that there had been no real magic to speak of. I'm just a girl who buys great gifts, conceptually anyway.