The Great Hat Debacle

The day had finally arrived, to great fanfare:  HAT DAY!  September 30.  Captain Douchebag (sorry if that offends, but it’s the nicest nickname he has, don’t even want to repeat the others) finally decided that yes it was finally cold enough in the mornings and after sunset to allow prisoners to wear their hats outdoors.  Glory Be!  Hallelujah!  I slapped my hat on my chilly bald head and happily strolled outside to greet the day.

But wait, what’s this?   Down by the guard shack some kind of fracas is underway.  Guys lined up, handing their hats over to the guards.  As I draw closer, I hear, “He’s changed his mind, now says it will be cold enough to wear hats on October 8^th.”  WTF?  But I’m cold now.  That’s crazy!  The complaints rain down on the guards, some of whom allow us to at least stow our hats in our pockets instead of confiscating them.

Flash ahead – it’s October 8 – heading out the door with my hat on!  But then I meet guys coming the other way, saying, "Nope, now it’s October 12^th, take it off!"  At this point even the least cynical, bitter, angry, etc., person among us (the guy I try to be) has to admit the Captain is just f—king with us.  To rub it in, the loudspeaker announces that wearing your hat can earn you a Shot (disciplinary report) for being out of uniform.  When pointed out to a guard that technically we would be “in too much” uniform, since the prison issues us our hats, dude did not even smile, responding with a gentle (sorry kids for the language), “Shut the Fuck Up!

Well, on the 12^th, lo and behold, we wear our hats outdoors without incident.  And you have never seen grizzled, hardened men so giddy with delight!  Sight was funny, entertaining and sad at the same time.  But wait, not done yet.  Remember the title of this post is not “The Hat Incident”.  It’s a full-blown Debacle.

So all of a sudden there’s a new rule that we can’t wear our hats in the chow hall.  Why is this a problem?  Well, normally you walk in, and while waiting by the door you leave your hat on, grab your tray, sit down, remove hat, and eat.  If you forget, a guard just reminds you and you take it off, no big deal.  But now, the Captain has decided that when we walk in the chow hall we must pluck our hats from our heads and THROW THEM AWAY!  In the trashcan!  One lieutenant particularly loves this idea, our throwing out our headgear willy-nilly.  But then an older lieutenant is overheard telling him, “I don’t care what the captain says, this is stupid.  Here’s the problem.  The gray caps are bought with the prisoners’ own money at the store.  If they have a receipt and you make them throw it away, they can file a tort claim and the prison will have to pay them, which means paperwork, hassle, money.   The tan hats are given to them as clothing, they’re BOP property, so if you make them throw it away, then we have to give them a new one!" To which the new lieutenant replies, “I don’t give a shit!”

Next morning a long line of guys shows up at the laundry seeking new hats.  The officer there unleashes a string of expletives but agrees that they should get them.  Only problem is, the storeroom is out of tan hats.  They only have one box of orange – and I mean hunter’s vest orange – hats.  So he passes them out to about 25 guys and says he’ll order more.  These hats, it turns out, are nicer than the tan ones.  This guard earns the rarely bestowed “he’s cool for a guard” label.  Because he did the logical thing, giving hats to men who needed them, and also, even cooler, said, “Fuck the Captain.”  Which now means that every bright orange hat in our sad little world represents a stab at the Captain.  I’m sure you can guess how this goes over.

Next day, on Captain’s orders, all orange hats must be confiscated.  He apparently thinks they are contraband sneaked in from another compound or something.  He demands that all inmates must have laundry issued tan hats.  But you know, it only took two prisoners who absolutely positively refused – they stuck out their hands for the cuffs, said, “Take me to the SHU!” – for the captain to storm off to the laundry to figure out where these outlandish orange hats came from.  You should have seen his face when the laundry officer told him, “Damn straight I issued the orange hats!  It’s MY laundry and it’s YOUR people who threw the hats away!”  Huge round of applause.  I swear it was like the rousing nerd-stands-up-for-himself speech in a John Hughes film.  That is, if Hughes had shot the movie in prison and all the actors were tatted up and dressed in prison garb, but you get the point.  And get this, we kept our orange hats!  Ka-ching! One for the little man!

And let me just tell you, I do love my orange hat.  Even though it’s gotten a little warmer the past few days, you should have seen all the guys making a point of parading past the Captain, nodding smartly in their new orange hats!