COOLER THAN I'LL EVER BE, PART VII

So let me tell you a true story.

Last week, I was walking down the street, dressed reasonably fly, you know, I had the leather jacket and the chucks with the flames on 'em, my Toronto Maple Leafs ball cap and my swinging newish shirt that I'd bought from H&M for less-than-you'd-think about a month ago instead of doing laundry. I was, as they say, styling. Bee Gees in my head, strutting along in the autumn afternoon, being kicked by old ladies and autistic cellphone businessdudes and knocked over by generically ethnic delivery guys with hand trucks, but aside from that, you could tell by the way I use my walk I'm a woman's man, something something something.

Standing on the corner (I wanna say the corner of Walk and Don't Walk, but it was actually 14th and Broadway) was this woman who looked like she'd stepped out of some Missy Elliott Doritos commercial. She was dressed. Lavender jumpsuit she could have worn to a board meeting, bag matched the shoes, she had the look. And topping the look was a fedora that just fit perfectly.

Now, being a man of no hair (by choice, thank you kindly), I have learned to appreciate proper headwear. Every once in a while, the art of wearing a good hat fades from popular culture, and it takes some creative movement somewhere to bring it back for some secondary reason, be it some retro fetish or a religious or utilitarian thing. Fine millinery never completely goes out of fashion, but it does fade sometimes.

I'm walking toward this fully tricked-out fashion queen, and if I'm gonna say someting I have about three seconds. So I told her, "Damn, girl, but you sell that lid, I mean, you are tricked out in that thing. I'm not playing you, I'm just saying: that hat just makes you."

Of course it came out more like, "Gosh, that thing on your head sure is purty!" Styling, brotha. Straight up.

She looks at me, up and down, and slow like a glacier, she sucks her teeth, and of all things she could dis me for, she chooses, saying it real low so only everyone in Union Square can hear:

"Leafs fan."

Aw, gurl, hit me where I live.