Trendsetter

Since it's basically winter now, I've bought myself a gaggle of winter-type clothings, from gloves and scarves to this oddity I've never known before: the winter hat. I have three hats I try to wear interchangeably, and I'm still getting the hang of how to coordinate my outfits around them. Do I take the hat off when I get inside? Is it a part of the outfit itself, or an accessory akin to the purse or scarf? Does it stay on, or come off? I really don't know.

Today I donned one of my favorite new hats as part of my outfit and wore it all day long. Through brunch and shopping and a doomed trip to a suburban Wal-Mart in search of my self-worth (found it! Right in the men's leather goods aisle, next to the Cheetos), then on the way home I finally took my hat off in the car. My hair was a nest of sweaty unconcern, my forehead adorned with the imprint of a slightly too-tight brim. Embarrassed at my own reflection in the rearview mirror, I just sighed and put the hat back on, and kept going through my day.

Then I felt this odd prick on my forehead, almost like a bee sting, right under the brim of my hat. I rubbed the spot a bit and the pain went away, and I thought, "Huh. Weird. You'd think I got a bee sting while sitting here in my car in the snow in the middle of Chicago. Guess not, since I don't see any bees around."

A couple hours later, I was sitting on my couch watching 3 Tivo'ed episodes of 30 Rock and I felt that weird pain again in the same spot. By this time the had had been off for quite some time, and as I lifted my hand to touch my hairline, I caught a glimpse of my left thumb drawing close. And it, along with my index finger and half my palm, was covered in dried blood.

Panicked I jumped up and ran to the bathroom to look myself in the mirror. From the epicenter of pain where that imaginary bee had stung my forehead, splaying out and down my face were trails of blood, caked to my skin for hours. It wasn't a bee sting at all, apparently it was some weird phantom gash across my forehead that had been there for GOD KNOWS HOW LONG! While I sat around my house watching reruns I was also losing however many pints of blood it takes to PAINT a human forehead with dark, cracking red without them even noticing.

Since I'm apparently oblivious to my own pain, that means I was also oblivious to the fact that I had been bleeding from the face for hours, and when I picked up the hat I'd been wearing this feeling was confirmed when I saw the entire inside of it was also covered in my own blood. Then everything made sense when I noticed that sticking out of the inside of the brim of my new hat was THE OPEN SAFETY PIN used to affix the price tag.

How did I, #1, not realize that the price tag was still hanging from the inside of my hat? And #2, that the safety pin holding it to my hat was not only open but IMPALING me each time I put the hat on? Was I so obsessed with looking presentable in my new winter clothes that I convinced myself I was being stung by a bee each time I put a hat on? How could someone be so stupid, and why didn't anyone tell me the entire time I walked around the suburbs?

They probably saw me coming in my hoodie and Chuck Taylors and blood-soaked hat, face painted with bright red blood frozen to my skin, and said to each other, "That must be a new trend or something, I bet she got it from Hannah Montana."