hats off

I won't name names, but I have a particular friend who is rather fond of hats.  Or rather, he's not necessarily fond of hats in general, but of one very particular style of hat, which happens to be his favorite.  I'm a bit hard pressed to remember the name of it, but I could very easily identify for you precisely the sort he'd be after.  We once spent, you see, an entire morning running all over Sydney looking for one very like that one, but in jet black.  And very like that one, but with a ribbon.  And very like that one, but with no hems on the edges.  And very like that one, but with a slightly different sort of indent on the top.  And -- oh! exactly like that one, but for $160 less.

It was, to be sure, a unique morning.  Never before have I been greeted by a friend I see at most once a year these days with a chirpy, "Hey!  We have a surprise mission.  This way!"

Oddly enough, I hadn't guessed our surprise mission was finding the perfect hat.  Seeing as our last one had been finding the perfect waffle at Max Brenner (an episode that scathed us both equally, I think -- me for having said I could eat as much chocolate as you could find but assuming we were sharing the waffles for two (we weren't) with our hot chocolates, and him for believing me and following suit.  We both finished everything, though, just for the record.  We're both a bit too stubborn to back down from that sort of challenge.  Or any challenge, really, come to think of it.), I really hadn't seen the head attire thing coming.  Had I known, I'd have brought fabric swatches to match to the perfect tiara while we were at it.

We tried a shop here, a shop there, a shop in the Strand, a shop not in the Strand, another shop not in the Strand.  Finally, we ended up at David Jones.  (Or maybe it was Myer.  I don't know, they seem the same to me and I get them horribly confused.  The only thing I'm really certain of is that it's the David Jones that connects to a Max Brenner.  But really, they're so close, at least the ones on George Street.  And they're both overpriced.  And they're both department stores.  And neither of them supply what I tend to want.  Or if they do, they charge more than I would remotely contemplate shelling out for what I tend to want.  And thus I don't know either all that well.  All I know is that we were in the one that has roughly eight levels with escalators going all up through the middle.  Leave it to you to figure out which.)

At David Jones we pretty quickly ascertained that, while they did actually have the hat in question (!!), it was, shockingly, overpriced.  Or shockingly overpriced.  However you want to look at it.

However, we'd exhausted the short list of CBD haberdasheries and, not having a car, decided the next best use of our time was making it to the top of David Jones.  There's only so much to do in an epic department store (I'm no Corduroy), but we found most of it -- clothing to gape over (is that really what men are wearing nowadays?  surely not ...), fake books to browse (in the furniture section, making the shelves look "used" and "natural") and Christmas decor to mock ("can you imagine anyone having that?!"  "uh, my mother."  "oh.").

These small missions accomplished, there was but one floor left to ascend.  And, seeing as a dare had been issued somewhere around level 3, we both knew we had to run up the down escalator.  Him being the boy I decided he should go first.  He being adverse to being forceably ejected from David Jones glanced around for security first.  Seeing none, he bolted up.  I followed.

I grant that he beat me, but, really, I'm a bit out of practice at the whole escalator bolt these days.  Besides, he had a head start.

At the top, we realized we had nothing left to do.  We had arrived.  Hatless, but otherwise victorious.  We took a quick stroll around to divert any attention that might have been drawn to two adults careering up the down escalator (I have the distinct impression that this did not happen most weekday mornings at David Jones), then descended it.  And the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next until we were at street level and walked nonchalantly out.

That was the last time I saw this friend, but I doubt it'll be the last of him.  Though what we'll do next time I have no idea.