the everything in the world hat

8/14/2019 The Everything in the World Hat

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The Everything-in-the-World Hat

IT’S SATURDAY, EARLY EVENING. On TV is the kid wearing a hat shaped and

designed to look like a tomato. My four-an-a-half-year old daughter knows

this kid, has watched him before on this kid’s show and can even sing along

with a bit of the song he’s singing. She likes the hat.

“I’d like a grape hat,” she says.

“A grape hat,” I say, “That would be –“

“Or a banana hat.”

“A banana hat –“

“Or a tree hat,” she says, “Or an avocado hat!”

She giggles.

“Could you draw me an avocado hat, daddy?” she says.

Now, the fact is, I can very well draw my little girl an avocado hat. I

can draw, and not bad at all too. I’m already envisioning the drawing I will

do while reaching for one of her pencils and a piece of paper off the coffee

table.

“I know,” she says, “How about an everything hat!”

“And what,” I say, “Would be on an everything hat?”

The answer comes simply enough, even for me.

“Everything, daddy . . . the people . . . and airplanes . . . and the

kids’ clothes . . . and football fields (‘football fields?’ I think) . . . and gas

stations . . . and Mexico (she loves Mexico) . . . and everybody’s work . . .

and swimming pools . . .”

I interrupt -- “So, you’re saying that an everything hat haseverything on it, like, everything in the whole wide world ?”

The answer again comes simply enough.

“Yeah, daddy. Could you draw that, daddy? And smart cars . . . and

crocodile water slides . . . and baby shoes . . .”

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Up to this point I’ve been entertaining the notion of doing her up a

drawing of an “Everything Hat”-- you know -- could be fun -- some clowns,

ice cream cones and balloons, endearing large-eyed fuzzy animals all

crammed this way and that together on a ridiculous and very funny large

goofy hat, but now, after a list that far too closely is beginning to resemble

the, ah, Real World, the notion takes on a more angst-ridden and creepier

persona, for the hapless artist doing the rendering, anyway. For one thing,

I’m not enamoured with the idea of putting everything in the whole wide

world in one place although I’m aware that it can be argued that everything

in the whole wide world is already in one place, isn’t it, like, that one place

being the whole wide world? Well, what I mean is I’m not enamoured with

putting everything in the whole wide world in one tiny confined space, like

the top of a hat.

So while my thinking on the matter begins to escalate with greater

energy, so too does my daughter’s list of “in the whole wide world” items to

be added to the hat, from her whole wide world at least. I’m becoming a

little overwhelmed and realize that the actual concept of the “Everything

Hat” is not in itself a major problem for either of us to handle, especially

my daughter, but what I am surprised by are the emotions that go with it.

For my daughter of four-and-a-half-years she is filled with excitement and

what can only be joy by the whole concept. For me, the notion of a hat with

everything in the whole wide world on it fills me with nothing but dread

and a rising panic. For her, it would be beautiful and fun. For me it would

be infinitely ugly and threatening, not to mention impossible to draw, even

a little bit. Let’s see, hordes of people in every condition from the healthy

and wealthy to the down-trodden and diseased; tanks, guns, bombs, war

stuff; smoke, buildings, highways, junkyards, city dumps, pollution stuff up

the yin-yang and beyond; and then there’s mindless government officials,

mindless celebrities, mindless terrorists and just the mindless in general –

the list goes on and on. And all this to be concentrated in one small place,

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together, on the top of a hat -- O, what impromptu feelings of rage and

revulsion doth suddenly beat within thy breast now, daddy?

I’ve kind of lost it by now, I know. The ceiling fan, set on low,

resonates a slight tick with each revolution. I watch the blur of the blades as

an owl hoots faintly from the woods out back the house. The dog’s flaked

out on the carpet, felt pens lay scattered over the coffee table. A colouring

book and an empty kid’s juice box fallen on its side, cookie crumbs and a

half-deflated balloon.

“Daddy,” her voice chirps, “An everything hat would be too big

wouldn’t it?”

“By all that’s holy, child!” I can almost hear myself saying at this

point, so far gone am I on the horror of the concept by this time. Instead she

receives an indulgent daddy’s smile.

“It would be huge and an abomination, sweetie,” I say.

Then hugs and kisses and she is allowed to toddle off upstairs to bed

with her everything in the whole wide world hat still intact and I know she

will instinctively be able to keep all things scary and unappealing off of it,

unlike her old man, who remains downstairs on the sofa mesmerized by the

growing catastrophe of his own hat and the artist in him still struggling with

the logistics of actually doing a drawing of an everything in the whole wide

world hat, like, where would one begin such a work, and, more importantly,

how long would the damn thing take?

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the everything in the world hat

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