Old Hat

You know how guys have lucky baseball caps?  I, too, have a lucky hat.  I've had it forever.  It's a lovely, little cloche hat that reminds me of the 1920s.  It's been with me every time something good has happened in my life.

The other day I was at Flor-Mart.  I was there to pick up a few odds and ends and check out the bargains.  I put my hat in my coat pocket.  I always put it there, in the same pocket.

After paying for my purchases, I reached into my pocket to find my hat and it was gone.  I felt my body get all tingly.  Where was it?  I searched both pockets, my purse, my bags, the floor around me.  No hat.  That's when I began to panic.

With my bags in hand I began running around the store like a mother searching for her lost child.  I retraced my footsteps.  I looked under things in case my hat fell and was kicked.  I looked everywhere.  Everywhere.  But I couldn't find it.

By this time, store security had found me and wondered what I was doing.  They were convinced I was attempting to shoplift.  I was taken in a backroom where they searched my purse, bags and pockets and patted me down.  I explained the situation to them.

One of the guards laughed.  "Why don't you buy a new hat?  You're at Flor-Mart.  Ten thousand square foot of every product under the sun."

I told them it was my lucky hat and I couldn't possibly ever replace it.  It was too precious to me.  Both guards laughed at me before telling me to leave the store.

I left with my heart heavy and my head hung low.