Sun Hats

 Day 31: Sun Hats

Estate sales are magnetic. I've been trying to limit my purchases during the stuff project, but the advent of garage and estate sale season will make it a challenge. Especially estate sales.

People say you are what you eat. I believe that we are what we have. And what better place to peer into the inner workings of our fellow human beings than to paw over their earthly remains?

Reluctantly we part.
One too floppy, one too stiff

I'm not alone in this. At 10 a.m., not an hour after the sale had started, the street was already full of parked cars with stuff being loaded into them. People were testing out tools in the garage, trying on baseball hats in the bedroom, playing the oversized grand piano in the undersized living room, peering at medicines in the bathroom cabinet. It reminded me of when the undertaker and the charwoman stole Scrooge's bedcurtains and nightshirt to sell to the pawnbroker.

What can you tell about the people who died in that house? A grand piano, a sailboat, a treadmill, a safe. No kids' stuff. Men's shirts still in the package. Sturdy Sorel boots, lightly worn. Oversized log furniture, at odds with the spare Frank Lloyd Wright style architecture of the house. Garage so packed with stuff there was no room for a car.

My camping gear, garden tools, and sun hats should tell you I like to be outside. But why so many sun hats? Is it because there are so many beautiful ones, so much variety? Is because I'm always forgetting to pack one when we go camping? Or is it because I am perpetually searching for the Platonic ideal? I don't know, but I know this. I have a lot of sun hats, but I didn't want to give any away.

The perfect sun hat. It must shade your eyes but not block your view. It must be tight enough to grip your head, but not so tight that it's uncomfortable. It must have give but keep its shape. It must have a generous rim without being ridiculous. It must not itch. It must breath. These five are just too good to give away