A Monumental Letter

Dear Hat World,

I was extremely disappointed with your website's advertisement, in which you claim that people can "make their own hat." I was disappointed because I was told that my special hat was not an option at your website. In short, your website is guilty of false advertising, and I want my dang hat.

Your advertisement did not note that the hat in question must be a baseball cap. Not all hats are baseball hats, you know. When you say "hats", you are speaking of all styles and all preferences. Not everyone conforms to your stupid sports hats. Some of us like special hats. And I happen to be a very special boy who would like a very special hat.

So tell me, Hat World, why can't you make me the oversized novelty cowboy hat that I requested? Is there something wrong with me wanting an oversized novelty cowboy hat? Is something wrong with a 23 year-old man wanting a hat that is oversized, and one that is also a cowboy novelty?

Do you think I'm a "loser"? Am I "stupid" because I want to create a hat that will show my uniquely oversized novelty cowboy hat lifestyle? Am I what the young children describe as a "poopy head", simply for having a dream?

Well then, I guess I'm the biggest "poopy head" that ever lived. Because I have a dream.

You had a dream once, didn't you? Yes, I believe you once had a dream to allow people to create their own special hats. Well, just because your dream failed miserably (i.e. lack of oversized novelty cowboy hat inventory) doesn't mean you have to ruin my dream.

I have a dream, Hat World.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of "create your own hat." And we will hold these truths to be self-evident that all hats are equal in the offer. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia we will all be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Minnesota, a frozen state, covered in ice and devoid of all oversized novelty cowboy hats, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the sports team on their hat, but by their hat's size and novelty. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Wisconsin, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little boys and girls will be able to walk together as sisters and brothers with their special hats. I have a dream today.

Go back to Minnesota, go back to Wisconsin, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of trying to find a company that will create an oversized novelty cowboy hat for me, I still have a dream.

When we let freedom ring, when we let oversized novelty cowboy hats flow in every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, to black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, we will all be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, free at last!