Hey, lady—you got a problem with my hat? I mean, look. I was just walking down the street, minding my own business on my way to the A Train, and you—an ordinary, middle-aged white lady in a blue plaid housedress—stop to glare at my hat. How friendly is that?
This is a good hat, lady, a cool hat. My girlfriend got it for me. Yeah, my girlfriend, see? She got me this tough, proletarian, newsboy's cap. Says to the world, 'I may be cute, but I'm still a dyke.' You got a problem with that? You don't like that I am wearing a lesbian hat?
Oh, I see I'm scaring your little pug dog. Yap, yap, yap—well, so what? Maybe little puggie, here, is afraid I'll tear off your blue plaid frock, afraid I'll sweep you into my arms and rain ardent kisses upon your upturned, horrified face. That would teach her to support gay marriage, wouldn't it, little puggie?
I'm sure you are aware that homosexuality is not a disease, lady. We queers may be going to hell, but we're going there with a certificate of mental health from the American Psychiatric Association. For what that may be worth. Plus, I have very good personal hygiene. There's nothing wrong with me, other than the fact that you don't like my hat.
It's too 'mannish,' isn't it, lady? Too 'unfeminine'? My hat subtly tells you that, if my girlfriend and I were to get married, I would be the groom. That the night before, there would be a lesbo stag party with whips and spike heels and hairy, tattooed bulldykes throwing their babes over Harley-Davidsons—and everybody would be wearing these hats. Isn't that what you think, lady? Oh, SHUT UP, little puggie.
All I'm doing is wearing this hat, lady. Big ordinary deal. But I can see it bugs you. You hate my hat. I mean, hat hatred is a terrible thing. So many hats suffer needlessly. Compared to the war on Iraq or the acquittal of those cops for the murder of Sean Bell, my hat, for you, is real pain. I'm trying to empathize, here, lady, how'm I doing?
It's hard being a middle-aged lady in a blue plaid housedress, with no hat and a yappy dog, isn't it? There are no blue plaid Pride Marches for your kind, no special bookstores, no blue-plaid-pug-dog issues to defend on The O'Reilly Factor. You face ever-increasing food prices, your Medicare won't pay for your mammogram, and you carry, deep within your subconscious, the chronic awareness that the Indian Point nuclear power plant supplying our city's electricity could, any day, send out radioactive plumes that would kill us all within a week. Yet you, for some reason, decide to fixate your existential malaise on my hat.
I suppose, because you are relatively powerless, I enjoy venting at you. I should be grateful that you are not a gang of frat jocks who would do more than merely sneer at my hat. And I admit that, while I have nothing against your housedress, I do see you as a stereotype. It's hard for me not to think of you as 'one of them.' Because I am so sick of all the snide little glances 'you people' give off when I pass.
But I have a large soul. I can forgive. I forgive you, lady. My hat gives me this power.
So, if you have a problem with my hat, if my choice of chapeau oppresses you, please tell me. Go for it, lady. Share. It will bring peace.
Our time on this planet is limited and shortens, even as you glare. And yet, would your life improve if I actually took off my demented Sapphic headgear? I think not. That's the whole point, isn't it?
I can't explain it, but your life, would, in fact, be somehow diminished if I removed this hat. And so I shall wear my hat—for you, lady. I shall wear my hat as I walk past you and your yappy dog.
For you, I shall wear this hat as I ride the A Train downtown to a demonstration against the war on Iraq. Perhaps I will not be taken seriously because of my hat—but that will be the fault of homophobia. Perhaps the US will remain in Iraq and even bomb Iran—but that will be the fault of greed, George Bush, and late capitalism; not the fault of my hat. So I shall wear this hat, lady. I shall wear it in the wind and the rain and in paddy wagons and on sunny days at the beach. And someday, lady, someday—I shall maybe even wear this hat at my own wedding.
Copyright Susie Day 2008
