One of the best hats I have, based on the feel of the hat, is the Ohio State University hat given to me by my daughter. She attended school there and, knowing my hat-wearing ways, got one for me. The bill isn’t flat; it’s curved just enough. The front panels aren’t stiff with the plastic mesh; it soft and floppy all around. It’s super comfortable.
The only thing I don’t like about the hat is that it elicits people into assuming something about me that isn’t true. I’m not really into sports and, most definitely, couldn’t care less about college sports. But, somehow, wearing that red hat with silver O encouraged people to ask me about the game and what I thought about the past/upcoming season.
“I don’t know, dude. I wear the hat because my kid goes there.”
There was this one time when I went to a doctor’s office with my 16-year-old son. He had broken his wrist and we were getting his cast removed. The nurse called for us to be taken back and he said something as we were making out way through the hallway to the exam room. I didn’t really pay attention to what he said, but it sounded like he was saying some kind of code. I assumed it was addressed to the other employees since he wasn’t speaking directly to me or my son.
After we got situated in the room and did the preliminary stuff, he looked at me and said, “Oh aitch.”
It was the same thing that he said in the hallway when he called us back. “Excuse me?”
“Oh aitch.”
I looked at my son and back to the nurse. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means.”
He pointed. “Your hat.”
“My hat?” I took it off and looked at it. “What about it?”
“Oh aitch.”
I was incredibly confused. “No…there’s just an O on it.”
And then, he said something different. “I oh.”
I looked at him as though he was speaking an alien language. “Whaaat?”
He looked at me like I was an idiot. “O-H…I-O.”
“Ohio,” I said. “And?”
He sighed. “That chant, man. Call and response. I say ‘O-H’ then you say “I-O.”
“Ohhhhhhhh,” I said. “Why?”
“Because that’s the Ohio State
chant.”
“I don’t know about any of that,
dude. I wear the hat because my kid goes there.”
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