On hats
-------

Since the subject of hats is doing the rounds in Gopherspace[1,2,3],
here is my contribution.

When I was, I guess, a very young teenager, I habitually wore
baseball caps all the time, primarily because I believed this
completely excused me from the societal obligation to ever comb or
brush my hair, and of course my time was far too important to waste on
nonsense like that.  Thankfully I grew out of this idea at some stage.

As an adult, I only ever wear hats for functional purposes, which
basically means protection from weather.  If it is not very sunny or
very cold, I won't wear anything on my head.  Doing so would just be a
hassle to me, it's one more item of clothing to buy and then worry
about losing or getting dirty or whatever.  Of course my time is far
too important to waste on nonsense like that (perhaps I have not
changed as much as I thought?).

Now that I live in Finland, for the first time in my life the primary
purpose of headwear is not to prevent sunburn but instead to combat
extreme cold.  Here in South Western Finland things do not get too bad
and I usually just wear a generic beanie on cold days (I bought it
from a Japanese convenience store for about ¥1500 somewhere near
Morioka when travelling through Tohoku in early winter, after
realising I had left my *other* beanie in the seatback pocket of the
Shinkansen I had just got off).

But next week I am heading further up North for work and there is the
possibility of Genuine Cold.  I ordered a wonderfully hideous Swiss
army surplus fur hat[4] online (because if you are going to sacrifice
all sense of fashion for the sake of practicality, you may as well go
hard or go home).  Sadly, it's just a little bit too small for me to
comfortably wear.  So my wife, who is quite the avid home sewer and
makes a lot of our clothes, quickly made me something similar out of
some cheap fur-lined leather material she found at a local store.  It
more closely resembles a North American "trapper hat" than a Russian
"ushanka".  It is very warm, and comes it at about 8 or 9 on the Dorky
Headware Scale.  Hopefully it serves me well.  My wife will come along
and wear the Swiss hat because it fits her well enough.

[1] gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/pet84rik/BLOG/JAN18/Jan15-hats-on-heads
[2] gopher://sdf.org:70//users/jirka/Phlog/2018_01_08.txt
[3] gopher://sdf.org:70//users/pet84rik/BLOG/JAN18/Jan17-Hats-striking-back
[4] https://www.varusteleka.com/en/product/swiss-fur-hat-surplus/18096