I have decided to start a hat collection.

I live in a small (550 population) town in northern Minnesota, and the vast majority of males wear standard ball caps with some sort of logo on the front. I'm a bit odd, though, and since everyone around here knows that I don't really see what's wrong with starting a hat collection; and wearing each and every one in public if my mood and the weather fit it.

The hat collection kind of started with ball caps that were out of the ordinary. My favorite 2 ball caps at the moment are a Mile Hi Distilling cap with an S.S. death's head pin in it and a Minnesota Lynx western conference champions hat. But then the other day my mother and I were eating at a small town cafe in the town where my ISP is located while their techs were looking into installing a 3D video card in my PC. The card wouldn't go in because it was made for a much older PC, but it gave me the idea to buy a Ge Force 3D card, and also allowed me to stop at that cafe where I got a look at the sign across Main Street. The letters were Cyrillic, so I of course went over to investigate.

When I walked in I found a small cafe/shop containing 2 tables & chairs and a sort of breakfast bar with a Russian woman seated at it, and another woman behind the counter. Along one wall were assorted Russian food items, DVD movies, and 4 hats hanging up high. The first leather hat I tried on was too small, but then I spied the fur hat. It is still quite chilly here in northern Minnesota, and I had been looking at fur hats online for a couple months. When she said the price was $50 after I tried it on, I immediately bit without haggling, as all the similar hats I had seen were well over $75.

After mom and I finished our breakfast I started thinking about another hat over there, a tweed newsboy, I now know. I went over, inspected it and found a thinsulate lining with earflaps to pull down if I chose to. When I asked the price the woman said $20, but this time I haggled. "$15?". "O.K.". SOLD!

Now I have been shopping online for more hats and have purchased a dandy straw hat with wide cotton band around the crown to put a magpie tail feather in if I get the bid on 20 of them (I hope, I hope, I hope;GOT 'EM!), a summertime brown/grey houndstooth newsboy, and a navy beret with a U.S. flag on the front. I have an addictive personality, and this seems a fairly healthy outlet.