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Summer Megaparty: I Hate Hat Day.


"Hat Day." Separately, I'm fine with those two words. Together, I hate them as much as I hate anything in this world. Here's why:

I was a loser in junior high. No other way to describe it. I had my share of friends in grade school and was pretty okay with the world at large, but my mind and body decided to enter its awkward stage on the first day of the sixth grade, and stayed that way until I got to high school. I was goofy, round-faced, inadequate, and worst of all, I wore terrible clothes. Like, knockoff Skidz pants with Syracuse Orangemen t-shirts, which I only wore because I thought the orange mascot was cool. People would ask me who my favorite player was, and I couldn't even tell them what sport the Orangemen participated in.

Junior high was the most miserable time of my life, and I could tell you a thousand hilarious stories about my tremendous social failures throughout it, but they aren't relevant to this particular story. I just wanted you to have some context before I tell you about a little old thing called "Hat Day."

In the seventh grade, our teachers informed us of the upcoming special event known as "Hat Day." On this day and this day only, students were allowed to wear hats during classes. They told us that those who wore the most creative, extravagant hats would win prizes. While I usually shied away from anything resembling the spotlight, something clicked.

So I went home, grabbed a gigantic cardboard box, taped it to a cumbersome construction hat and fashioned myself a hat version of the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. This thing was hideous. Two feet tall, bulky, with casino highlights crudely drawn on in crayon. Fourteen rolls of scotch tape liberally plastered all over the hat. I was pretty proud of it at the time, and because I falsely considered "Hat Day" more like a skewed version of the yearly science fair, I boldly entered the courtyard...with a cardboard Trump Taj Mahal on top of my head.

And what did I see? What products of the artist's mind had my fellow students worn? 500 baseball caps. I was one of maybe a dozen students who made wacky hats, and of them, my stupid casino resort was by far the largest, corniest and most absurd. It took all of three seconds for everyone in sight distance to point and laugh, and it was only going to get worse from there.

Because I was one of very few students with a "creative" hat, and because mine was the size of a Ford Taurus, I was selected as one of the big winners. Would I win a new television, or maybe free tickets to Six Flags? I couldn't wait to find out.

Forget the televisions. My "reward" was a special "Hat Day" assembly, in which the ten kids with the best hats got to march in a circle up on stage in front of a jam-packed auditorium of laughing classmates. For like ten whole minutes, we just stood there walking in circles, trying to fight the tears as we struggled to keep our stupid, cumbersome hats from falling off. Aside from being forced to practice my nude robot dance on national television, I can think of nothing more embarrassing.

Upon returning from school, I didn't even make it into the house before kicking and ripping my Trump Taj Mahal hat into a zillion pieces. As I recall, I convinced my mother to let me stay home the next day, in the hopes that by the time I got back to school, everyone would've forgotten that they'd last seen me getting dizzy onstage with a cardboard hotel on my head. They did not.

Oh, I did get one small tangible prize aside from the glory of being a sideshow attraction at a school assembly. They made me a button.


I really, really hated "Hat Day."

Posted by Matt on 06/29/2007. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 112 comments

Appreciated, Manimal. I feel like the guy in disaster movies who swims in the underwater section of the facility for ages to come up just to say that they lock mechanism isn’t working.

The link is dead, I’m afraid, but here’s the thread it is in:

http://x-entertainment.com/updates/index.php?p=665

Chestnuts roasted by K- @ 06/30/2007 3:22 AM

I did something tonight so classically embarrassing that I’m completely proud of it. I went out midnight bowling and while I was taking a shot my 14lb purple ball slipped out the back of my hand and went flying backwards at my friends. I fell on my knees laughing.

But sadly I broke a nail. :cry:

Chestnuts roasted by Mystie @ 06/30/2007 3:36 AM

I think I’m either blissfully unaware or lucky, but I didn’t really get picked on. I avioded school spirit and it avioded me. I always came up with great ideas of what I would’ve done on so and so spirit day, but I never went through with them. Oh, not to mention a completly diregard of how others view what I wear. I mean hell I busted out orange wind pants and those pants that Chris KIrkpatrick of NSYNC wore in DIrty Pop.

Chestnuts roasted by Ranger Joe @ 06/30/2007 3:56 AM

Invader Norbert Talking about being jealous of radio stations and tv shows, the year literally, after I graduated my highschool started doing the announcements with students on a tv. They would push a tv into every classroom that didn’t have one apparently and do the annoucements everyday on a tv. I got to experience it once the last week of school. Also the local cable access airs them I seen it once it was cool. Cheap backdrop, outfits that looked like they were stolen from the Drama class, etc.

and Mystie great story :) From what I just seen on your videos on youtube your friends deserve a random bowling ball thrown their way to remind them to straighten up. BTW anyone that even slightly enjoys Mystie’s posts here should go and watch all of her videos. But on the darkwing duck video don’t read the comments. GAWD what a pervert.

Chestnuts roasted by Goob @ 06/30/2007 4:34 AM

Matt, as awful as your story is, I gotta tell ya, I was just like you in middle school. Except, I was like that all the way through high school. And I was probably a lot larger (fat) than you were. Yeah, people looked at me the same way, and I did goofy stuff like that hat thing on a regular basis. No surprise I had few friends and no girl would go anywhere near me until college. But hey, look at you now man, this site, working for Nickelodeon, you showed them. Wish I could say the same.

Chestnuts roasted by Destro @ 06/30/2007 4:35 AM

Oh those comments are just from my douchey internet buddy. Our whole relationship is pretty much us insulting each other and saying horrible and shocking things via AIM. Like, the other day he asked if I’d fuck a dead whale and my response was, “How long has it been dead?”

Chestnuts roasted by Mystie @ 06/30/2007 5:07 AM

Haaaaa look at that hat!Why the fudge would anyone consider that a good idea!Jesus!It’s friggin Hat Day just wear a baseball hat like everyone else and live the glory of knowing a teacher can’t do anything about it!Aw man…sorry dude.

Chestnuts roasted by Scorpion @ 06/30/2007 7:49 AM

Mystie: You know, I think everyone really needs a friend like that. For one thing, there’s all these wonderful insults floating around that would otherwise be completely unusable.

Chestnuts roasted by Jedoc @ 06/30/2007 8:50 AM

Aw, Mystie! My friends made a Sailor Moon club too! And, oh, 10 years later, in college, my friends and I dressed up as the 5 inner senshi (oh god, nerd alert, I’m sorry) for halloween. Which is not as nerdy as it could have been, because we actually have nice bodies, and made acurate costumes.

Chestnuts roasted by Brilliantpants @ 06/30/2007 9:05 AM

Hello everyone, I like this post. It certainly brought back some memories for me. We didn’t have hat day at my schools, but we had spirit week at my high school. Some of the themes varied from year to year. I remember school spirit day(where you wore clothes related to a college), 60′s day, 70′s day, and the day you just wpre a Halloween vostume(spirit week was usually the week leading up to or including Halloween). Now that I think of it, at my high school we might have had Spirit Week twice a year (one around Halloween, another at or near the year’s end). Once in seventh grade, for an in-class video project about the environment, me and some classmates dressed up in silly costumes and mimed to a heavy metal song. I essentially reused my Halloween costume from the previous year, when I went as Austin Powers. If that wasn’t bad enough, the frilly shirt was pink.

I think I might have you guys all beat.

Chestnuts roasted by Hoverbored @ 06/30/2007 9:31 AM

The History Channel is doing a special on the McRib. It is finally History! That sucks.

Chestnuts roasted by Bill @ 06/30/2007 10:39 AM

Knegative-”I never doubted you. Wonderful.”

I guess that picture will have to remain a memory since it is no longer on my hard drive. Oh well.

Chestnuts roasted by The Manimal @ 06/30/2007 10:43 AM

holy crap, that was hilarious.

Chestnuts roasted by Llegue. @ 06/30/2007 11:38 AM

Shit. I just found out that my girlfriend was one of the cool kids in high school and junior high. I was explaining how Matt took “Hat Day” to a creative extreme. She asked, “why would he do that?”

She’s one of them.

Chestnuts roasted by Bill @ 06/30/2007 12:16 PM

WHAT KIND OF MUSIC DID THEY PLAY WHILST YOU WALKED AROUND?

Chestnuts roasted by TAJ MAHAL @ 06/30/2007 12:30 PM

No music, just the pitter patter of sneakers are they dragged along the polished stage floor.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 06/30/2007 12:34 PM

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNICE.

Chestnuts roasted by TAJ MAHAL @ 06/30/2007 12:42 PM

I love how my school considered hats a “distraction”. Are kids really going to not pay attention to the teacher because some asshole is wearing hat? Apparently the people at my school must have had the most extreme case of ADD in the history of man or else they were all cavemen who had seen the modern world for the first time. I never wore a hat so didn’t really give a shit….Matt I’m half-tempted to send you a video of my 7th grade English/Reading class’ Celebration of Me….it was essentially a talent show for our class (although there was an alternative project you could do which was displayed in the other room.) I dunno whats better….the totally typical “grunge” flannel get i was wearing, our “original” song which was totally a Smells Like Teen Spirit rip-off, my “drum set” which consisted of pieces and parts of someone else’s old set, or my terrible singing…man middle school was quite the awkward time for me.

Chestnuts roasted by phunqsauce @ 06/30/2007 2:28 PM

Oh yeah….our school had spirit week and it went something like this: Hat Day, “twins” day (where you and a friend or friends dress the same. One year these two girls came in as siamese twins which got them in trouble for some reason… most likely being too much of a DISTRACTION!), pajama day, BLue and white day (shcool colors) and i can’t remember the fifth day but oh well.

Chestnuts roasted by phunqsauce @ 06/30/2007 2:46 PM

I never participated in such, as I have stated many, many threads ago. But reading about the trauma others endured, I’m glad I had my school spirit surgically removed at a young age.

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 06/30/2007 2:59 PM

I saw Sleepaway Camp for the first time last night on IFC. Not bad at all.

Chestnuts roasted by JLAJRC @ 06/30/2007 3:42 PM

We were actually allowed to wear hats at my high school until midway through my freshman year when they were banned. I remember the excuse they gave us was “gang activity”, but I am still convinced that the teachers just saw them as disrespectful, wanted them gone, and spun it in a manner so they could blame it on us.

It didn’t really bother me all that much when they were banned however. I did typically wear a hat, but I never understood why we were allowed to wear them in the first place, so I always just assumed they would change the rule. I just enjoyed it while it lasted.

Chestnuts roasted by Magic Toe @ 06/30/2007 4:00 PM

For my version of the hat day incident, we’ll need to replace all instances of “hat” with “drag” and “hat day” with “opposite day”.
I was seriously the only boy who participated, it was all my mom’s fault, honest. The worst part of the day was gym class when I had to take off my high heels and fun laps in my pantyhose. true story. Thanks Matt for continuing to post, I’ve been checkin in here for the past 5 years. Later.

Chestnuts roasted by Austin @ 06/30/2007 5:14 PM

Magic Toe reminded me of something. In middle school we couldn’t wear shoes by the BK or British Knight brand because they thought it was shoes people from gang members wore. They thought the initials stood for Blood Kill. We also couldn’t wear Dickies brand clothing because they thought gang members wore that too. Probably other bands too but I don’t remember.

A few years later after I was out of that school my cousin that went to that school’s classmate got suspended for bringing listerine to school. I guess the kid was obsessed with oral hygiene and just took mouthwash with him to school. The kid seemed decent, but why did they suspend him? Because Listerine has Alcohol in it. The parents tried to fight it I don’t remember what happened but it was on the news a few times. Public school pffftt

Chestnuts roasted by Goob @ 06/30/2007 6:10 PM

Oh Matt. I feel your pain. I probably would have been one of those dizzy kids on stage with you.

I had a similarly embrassing incident in 6th grade. Only mine involved “Pajama Day”, a set of bright blue Power Rangers pajamas, and my dearly beloved stuffed elephant. I wish not to speak any more of it.

Chestnuts roasted by Brian @ 06/30/2007 6:42 PM

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