In 6th grade we had a "hat day". This consisted of wearing (or making) a hat. Prizes were to be given out for the best in class hats - best sports hat, most unique hat, best homemade hat, etc. To be honest, I don't remember if I wore a hat, and if I did what it was. In fact, I only remember 2 hats from that day , and they will be burned into my memory forever.
I didn't expect anything out of the ordinary for "Most Athletic Hat", a baseball team hat, maybe a baseball batting helmet. It was 6th grade, how creative could you be? Well, don't tell that to PZ, because his hat was a tour de force in the field of athletic hats. It started with a football helmet, but didn't end there. On top of the helmet was taped a Frisbee, on one side was taped a baseball card, and the other side had a wiffle ball. Aside from the shock of trying to imagine exactly what sport such a helmet would be required to play, I was struck by something else - the excessive amount of tape used to attach the accessories. This was the tan masking tape popular in classrooms around the world. This was the most ridiculous hat I'd ever seen. One thing was obvious, PZ didn't have any help from his parents.
The other hat was even more of an enigma. It was a living work of art more than it was an ordinary hat. Imagine, if you will, what seemed like 100 individual peanuts sewn to a mesh hat. I know what you're thinking, "that's much too ludicrous to believe, Z". Believe it. The category of "Most Unique Hat" was over before it even began thanks to JF's peanut hat. And if that was the end of the peanut hat it still would have went down in 6th grade lore. But a funny thing happened (literally)...
After returning from lunch we were all told to sit in the hallway - now we knew something was up, the only times we sat in the hallway was when someone did something very wrong - like the time someone tried to flush EC's clarinet down the toilet (multiple pieces had to be retrieved from the toilets in the boys room) . Our "wing" of the building was in the basement and totally isolated from the rest of the school, so sitting in the hallway was like a mini assembly for us. The teacher's de facto enforcer, Social Studies teacher Mr. D., looked serious. "WHO ATE JF'S PEANUTS?!" We barely had time to process the words before Mr. D. produced the hat, almost out of thin air. In the place of that glorious hat with 100 peanuts was a crumpled, broken mass with pieces of empty shells and ripped thread. In examining the hat I was unclear as to if someone ate the peanuts or just stomped on the hat. I guess it didn't matter, JF was crushed, I'm pretty sure he was crying, but my memory is hazy. His greatest triumph was ripped away - a theme that was all too common in Jr High.
To this day I still don't know who the culprit was, and my friends would have been the most likely perpetrators of something like this.
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