Good karma
I'm convinced that the universe rewarded me for helping that lady with directions to Lord & Taylor earlier this week!
Yesterday, the Smelmooo drove me to the train station in the morning, because it was cold and I was running late and he's chivalrous that way. I got out of the car and realized I didn't have my warm winter hat, and figured I'd left it at home in my rush to get out the door.
I realized very quickly that there was no way I was going hatless in yesterday's weather, with a 10-minute walk to and from the office and a 12-minute walk home, so I bought a cheapo hat at the Duane Reade at Penn Station. It was a ridiculous-looking hat: blue-and-white striped, blue pom-pom on top, ear flaps with braided strings dangling down. My sister described it as "artsy pothead" (although it was fleece-lined, which I think makes that description slightly less apt). It was super-warm, but totally ridiculous, and seemed to put me completely over the edge as a fashion DON'T commuter (already in the mix: white-and-yellow sneakers with black tights and a red skirt, plus a plum-colored scarf. As I said, running late yesterday, but in generally I'm dressed for function rather than style for my commute), and I kept feeling grateful that I'm not a celebrity, because surely the Fug Girls would have had a field day with me.
Anyway, I got home last night and realized that my hat was not at home, and not in the car, and was therefore lost. I must have dropped it getting out of the car at the train station. Why, why, why, I walked back to see if the Smelmooo was still in the parking lot but did not think to look down to see whether I'd dropped my hat there is a mystery, but I was kicking myself about it all night. Because that hat was a good hat.
I have a big, oddly-shaped head. Every winter hat I've ever had, I've managed to stretch out in weird ways, eventually resulting in a giant elongated pouf at the top of my head. So two years ago, on a shopping excursion with MinnaRice, I found a perfect-looking hat: charcoal grey, cashmere, a correct fit for my weird head. It was from Neiman Marcus, so a little pricey, but at the outlet it was half-off the extra-ridiculous original price, so I figured it was worth the investment. And it held up! And it kept me warm! And it kept its shape! It reminded me that, sometimes, you can't get something at Target and expect it to last forever; some things are worth more of an investment in quality (see also: name-brand Oreo cookies vs. the store brand).
So I was really mourning the loss of the perfect hat, and all night and all morning I was thinking about whether I could wait until after Christmas to get another perfect hat on sale somewhere, because the artsy-pothead hat is not a viable option on work days, and although the knitted Rutgers hat I wore instead today is relatively warm, it's also quite itchy and falls at a weird spot in the middle of my ears. On my way out the door, I asked the Smelmooo, "What do you think the chances are that my hat's still at the train station?" He said zero; I said one percent.
And, as you may have guessed already: A Christmas Miracle! (or, a day-before-the-night-before-Christmas miracle, anyway) I walked into the station and saw a big pile of stuff (a makeshift lost & found that I'd never noticed before), and there was my perfect hat! It had a couple of leafy bits stuck to the outside, but it didn't seem to have been run over repeatedly in the parking lot or anything. I was babbling about how I couldn't believe someone had returned it, and a guy standing there (who works for the town? who works at the train station? I couldn't tell; I was just sort of talking out loud, not to anyone directly) said, "Well, yeah, we found it, and we put it there." Like, "Duh."
Which was fine. I didn't care. I know I'm disproportionately invested in the hat, and that I could've found another one, and that I'd have been plenty warm today in my itchy Rutgers hat. But it really all did seem bigger than a hat: a sign from the universe that things really do sometimes work out for the best, that there are people who are good and kind, that what's been lost can be recovered.
Yesterday, the Smelmooo drove me to the train station in the morning, because it was cold and I was running late and he's chivalrous that way. I got out of the car and realized I didn't have my warm winter hat, and figured I'd left it at home in my rush to get out the door.
I realized very quickly that there was no way I was going hatless in yesterday's weather, with a 10-minute walk to and from the office and a 12-minute walk home, so I bought a cheapo hat at the Duane Reade at Penn Station. It was a ridiculous-looking hat: blue-and-white striped, blue pom-pom on top, ear flaps with braided strings dangling down. My sister described it as "artsy pothead" (although it was fleece-lined, which I think makes that description slightly less apt). It was super-warm, but totally ridiculous, and seemed to put me completely over the edge as a fashion DON'T commuter (already in the mix: white-and-yellow sneakers with black tights and a red skirt, plus a plum-colored scarf. As I said, running late yesterday, but in generally I'm dressed for function rather than style for my commute), and I kept feeling grateful that I'm not a celebrity, because surely the Fug Girls would have had a field day with me.
Anyway, I got home last night and realized that my hat was not at home, and not in the car, and was therefore lost. I must have dropped it getting out of the car at the train station. Why, why, why, I walked back to see if the Smelmooo was still in the parking lot but did not think to look down to see whether I'd dropped my hat there is a mystery, but I was kicking myself about it all night. Because that hat was a good hat.
I have a big, oddly-shaped head. Every winter hat I've ever had, I've managed to stretch out in weird ways, eventually resulting in a giant elongated pouf at the top of my head. So two years ago, on a shopping excursion with MinnaRice, I found a perfect-looking hat: charcoal grey, cashmere, a correct fit for my weird head. It was from Neiman Marcus, so a little pricey, but at the outlet it was half-off the extra-ridiculous original price, so I figured it was worth the investment. And it held up! And it kept me warm! And it kept its shape! It reminded me that, sometimes, you can't get something at Target and expect it to last forever; some things are worth more of an investment in quality (see also: name-brand Oreo cookies vs. the store brand).
So I was really mourning the loss of the perfect hat, and all night and all morning I was thinking about whether I could wait until after Christmas to get another perfect hat on sale somewhere, because the artsy-pothead hat is not a viable option on work days, and although the knitted Rutgers hat I wore instead today is relatively warm, it's also quite itchy and falls at a weird spot in the middle of my ears. On my way out the door, I asked the Smelmooo, "What do you think the chances are that my hat's still at the train station?" He said zero; I said one percent.
And, as you may have guessed already: A Christmas Miracle! (or, a day-before-the-night-before-Christmas miracle, anyway) I walked into the station and saw a big pile of stuff (a makeshift lost & found that I'd never noticed before), and there was my perfect hat! It had a couple of leafy bits stuck to the outside, but it didn't seem to have been run over repeatedly in the parking lot or anything. I was babbling about how I couldn't believe someone had returned it, and a guy standing there (who works for the town? who works at the train station? I couldn't tell; I was just sort of talking out loud, not to anyone directly) said, "Well, yeah, we found it, and we put it there." Like, "Duh."
Which was fine. I didn't care. I know I'm disproportionately invested in the hat, and that I could've found another one, and that I'd have been plenty warm today in my itchy Rutgers hat. But it really all did seem bigger than a hat: a sign from the universe that things really do sometimes work out for the best, that there are people who are good and kind, that what's been lost can be recovered.
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