Tired of important issues? Try this one on!

Is it not time we took off those seed corn caps? At least while indoors? Or at least while in a restaurant? Or at the very least while not alone in bed?

Of course they are useful! If, for instance, you need a bit of shade or shelter from the rain, and a hooded sweatshirt will keep your neck warm, a seed corn cap is marvelous. Some of us know that the brim of a seed corn cap is just a handle for the yarmulke that fits very nicely where our hair used to be.

But the days of the seed corn- or baseball-cap are numbered. Baseball players ought to be wearing batting helmets, and not just while in the batter's box. Ask Justin Morneau about his concussion!

All right! Baseball caps are good caps, especially for baseball players. But millions of obviously non-athletes wear them, their bills rolled tight like soda straws, because . . . because . . . No, I am just tired of seeing them everywhere. Especially in bed. Even in restaurants.

I honestly did not recognize a good friend, just for a moment, one morning, because he had taken off his billed cap. It was like seeing a macaw without his bill. "What is that critter?" I had a flashback to the time when, in the gym shower after exercising, I did not recognize a years-long colleague because the shower water had overcome his habit of combing his ear hair up over his bald spot.

Wearing a ball cap all the time--indoors, outdoors, backwards, bill bent back, rolled like a spy glass, washed or unwashed--creates a personna other than the glorious critter god created: the bald one, or naked one, or uncombed one.

Caps and hats are fine, but not when glued to one's head; not super-glued to one's head. Caps are costume, but more than just one costume is even better, lest we become the costume.

Comments

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