The friend I gave the five hats to, who promptly distributed four of them to his friends, dropped by for just a moment this evening with another friend in tow.

So I briefly put him on the spot by asking the guy, Now are you one of the friends who got one of my hats?

A quizzical, Hats?

So he turned that to the subject of–and here the two of them interwove various sentences to tell it–how our friend had gone running, had managed to spear his on a tree branch overhead, didn’t realize it wasn’t still on his head till later and he’d gone back and looked and looked and just couldn’t find it. Meantime, the second guy had gone running later, in the same place, had seen and recognized that hat and had snagged it and returned it to him. They were laughing at all the improbabilities that had happened for that to have worked out, but it had. Good times.

I grabbed my purse and checked: they were still in there. Good. I didn’t have to interrupt to go looking in the other room. I asked friend two if he’d like one of these?

He in great delight picked the foggy blue one. Now he had one of his own. Watch out for those tree branches!

They went off with the guy touching the new softness on his head in the chill of the evening, marveling and thanking and man that felt great.