THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 24, 1994 TAG: 9408240754
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
I WAS DRIVING a young woman of college age to a restaurant the other day, doing about 30 in a 35-mph zone when she banged the dashboard with her palm.
``You're going so slow we missed the green light,'' she said. ``Honestly, you drive like a man in a hat!''
``Drive like what?''
``Like a man in a HAT!''
I didn't know what that meant. She rolled her eyes upward and flapped her palm wildly in front of her nose.
``You know,'' she said. ``Men in hats drive crazy. They creep instead of cruise. Or maybe they drive all the way through town with the turn signal blinking. Or they make a turn and never give a signal at all.''
She said men who wear hats are to driving what Jeffrey Dahmer was to gourmet dining.
``I never noticed that,'' I said.
``Well it's true,'' she said.
It was an interesting theory. I'd never heard it before.
``I rarely see men in hats driving,'' I said. Odd how the memory works. At that moment, I recalled a postcard I'd seen at a Bible bookstore years ago.
It was a weird postcard with a painting of ``Rapture Day'' on the back.
The painting showed a large city with cars on the streets viewed from a great height. The cars were running into each other, crashing into rails and store fronts. Quite a few of the men in the cars were wearing hats. But they were all dead. You could see their souls slipping out through the car windows, drifting toward heaven. The souls looked like balloon-shaped puffs of smoke with eyes in them.
You don't see a postcard like that every day. I didn't mention it to my passenger because the men in hats on that postcard weren't responsible for the accidents. It didn't seem like good evidence one way or the other.
``Look out for that truck,'' she said, stomping at the floor of the car.
``Would you like for me to drive?''
I told her no. ``I was distracted, thinking about men in hats,'' I told her. ``You sure you don't have a hat in here someplace?'' she asked, opening the glove compartment and turning to look into the back seat.
She thought that men who drive wearing hats should be arrested. ``They are a menace,'' she said. ``It must be those bands in the hats that are too tight. Cuts off the blood circulation to the brain. They all have both hands on the wheel but they drive like they have weiners stuffed in their ears.''
``I just never noticed,'' I told her.
``What do they wear the hats in the cars for anyway? Do they think it's going to rain? Does the hat keep the sun off? The wind maybe? No.''
``Maybe the men who wear hats want to make a statement,'' I said. ``Like guys who wear their ball hats backward. They're saying: `I care nothing for your silly rules and conventions. I am a fool and am going to stay a fool and there's nothing you, my boss or Congress can do about it.' ''
She thought people who wear ball caps while driving were as bad as men in hats. ``They are always listening to ball games or country music and don't pay attention to what they are doing. People who jump the curb and drive their cars into the glass showrooms of furniture stores usually are wearing ball hats,'' she said.
``But the men in hats are worse,'' she said.
I never saw a woman so stuck on a subject. She thought the legislature should pass a law making hat driving illegal for males. Sort of like the law prohibiting driving while drinking.
She began to imitate a prosecutor, lowering her voice: ``Your honor, the defendant was driving under the influence of a hat for several hours prior to the accident.''
I dropped her off in front of the restaurant. She had certainly made a strong case. I'd have tipped my hat to her but fortunately didn't have one.
Driving away, I spent the next hour cruising up and down the streets looking for men driving cars while wearing hats. But I couldn't find a one on Granby Street, Olney Road or Colley Avenue.
Guess the cops had rounded 'em all up. by CNB