The Straw Hat

A couple of weeks ago, I went out with a few friends after work to a trendy new bar/restaurant that had a great outdoor seating area and maybe a good selection of beer. I’m not a beer drinker, so I don’t really know the score on that one. Side note: it’s very difficult to get a decent glass of wine in a beer joint. Generally it’s a week-old jug of Ernest and Julio Gallo, splashed indifferently into a dirty glass. Whatever. I’m not that picky.


Anyway, the place filled up like gangbusters, and before I knew it, my coworkers were accusing me of being on the prowl because of the way I was looking around the bar, focusing on people coming in, and where they were sitting. First of all, I would never go on that prowl at a bar. Gauche. Second, I would never go on the prowl. Have you not already heard that I am having a love affair with my couch and TV? Fact is, I wasn’t on the prowl; I was just observing what a giant wad of space-takers had come to this place.

What is a space-taker? It’s a person whose only quality is that they take up space. They don’t have a thought, emotion, aspiration, or impact on the world, save that they procreate and spend money on stupid shit. My biggest clue that there were space-takers afoot was the proliferation of straw hats. Now, in general, I am not opposed to hats. I understand that people like baseball caps, and I say go for it. I know that sensitive new age guys are all about those tight wool caps, and if that’s what you like while massaging your girlfriend’s back or grooming your beard, then by God, wear one. Berets, fedoras, yarmulkes….they all serve a fine purpose. But for some reason, these straw hats really pissed me off.

To be clear: this is the straw hat I’m talking about. The kind Dean Martin wore in the late fifties with a pair of wayfarers and those Mexican sandals that fall apart, like, the second time you wear them to EVEN ONE active quarry. Srirachas? Hurrachas? Something like that. Anyway, that straw hat, sandal, sunglasses look was original and appropriate among the Rat Pack, but is just something that space-takers who think they’re Dean Martin wear now. And the fact that multiple men in this place were wearing the EXACT same hat made it that much more clear that none of them were original; they were just dressing up, and had obviously taken advantage of a sale at Banana Republic.

And you’re thinking to yourself right now, “Whoa, lady, step it back a notch! It’s just a hat!” Good point. However, it’s not the hat that got me. It’s the supreme, yet uniform lack of personality that was on display. Wearing a straw hat with a grosgrain ribbon to a bar is a very specific choice, generally calculated to say something to the world. To me, it says, “I need to make better choices.”

Similar story: one day, I was at a work conference, and a whole bunch of people who worked together in a different area of the company were also there. The place where they work is high-pressure and excessively male-dominated. I looked at the guy sitting next to me, who was wearing a Tom Ford-style slim blue suit with brown shoes - not a personal favorite look of mine, but I get that it’s a thing. I also noted that this dude was wearing a pair of socks that were, like, orange plaid with pink polka-dots. I thought that was kind of interesting, until I looked at all of his equally besuited colleagues, and noted that they, too, were wearing the crazy socks. So, somewhere along the line, someone had made an interesting and original choice, and rather than actually make their own interesting and original choice, all the space-takers decided to just run out and do the same thing.

Now, I’m not saying that this is a harbinger of the decline of our civilization, but I am pretty sure that it is a harbinger of the decline of our civilization. So here is my advice to the space-takers of the world: figure out who you are, and then go out and be that person. Just give it a try. Save the world.