July 12, 1991
Dear Everyone:
Remember paper dresses?
All the rage sometime in the
‘60’s. Not terribly practical, of
course; but great as a gag or something to use once and throw away.
Or give away.
Well, rest assured, the technology still exists,
even if they're not making paper dresses anymore.
What they are making these days
is paper hats. Baseball caps.
I know because I have one.
Back when I attended the PC coordinators
conference, the various computer companies were handing out freebies
just as fast as their little patty paws could move.
One company cop, Avnet, gave away
baseball caps. Naturally, since
they were giving them away, they didn't want to spend a lot of money on
materials; so the caps were made out of paper, of a hideous shade of
neon pink, with the company logo stamped on the front.
And, to make sure that people took the caps, Avnet
hosted a breakfast bar one morning. The
catch was, in order to get into where the free food was, you had to get
past the Avnet people and accept a cap. I
know one young woman who kept going in, coming out and going in again,
not because she was hungry, but because she was hoping to outfit her
entire software team with Avnet caps.
I contented myself with just one, which I wore to
“Jeannie’s” the following weekend. She
agreed that it was a clever gimmick. However,
due to the nature of the color, it would be impossible for her to be
seen in public with me should I choose to wear it.
So the cap went into the backseat
of my car where it sun-faded in a remarkably short period of time.
By this time, though, the damage had been done.
I discovered that I like wearing
a hat. Outside.
Where the sun shines.
It keeps the sunlight out of my
eyes.
I don't know if my eyes are becoming more
light-sensitive as I (shudder) grow older, or if I'm just less tolerant
of the discomfort that bright sunlight causes me.
But I've been on the lookout for
hats ever since that silly, little cap.
Last weekend, “Jeannie” had
tons of deposition editing to
do and I had a “To Do” list as long as my arm.
So what did we do?
Threw it all over and went shopping for hats.
“Jeannie”, the shopping expert,
pointed out that this is the time of year that the retailers are getting
ready to put out their fall/winter stuff, which means they have to get
rid of the spring/summer stuff that's taking up the available space.
And that means the Magic Word:
Sale!
We had a great time, roaming around the
(air-conditioned) shopping mall, looking for and trying on hats.
Finally, in one store, we found
two that we both liked. Both on
sale. Unable to decide between
the blue one and the brown one, I settled on a compromise and bought
both. Total cost:
$16.00.
In other news…
It's only two short weeks until we (“Jeannie” and
I) had up to Oregon for the much-looked-forward-to-wedding and trip to
Ashland (in that order). I
think Mother's plan for her and Dad to move out to the Canby Inn,
leaving the house in the capable hands of those kids is a stroke of pure
genius. After all, we're all
responsible adults now.
And I'm sure their insurance is paid up.
Love, as always,
Pete
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