HATNAPPERS

A TORTURED TERRY TAIL, ER, TALE

His hat was gone! Did they not KNOW he could never do the "R" part of "K&R"

without his HAT???  Even the "K" would be much harder!

He was not only appalled, horrified, and taken quite aback that his hat was gone, he

didn't like it one bit!

There was, however, no choice. He would have to postpone the "R" part of  his mission. There

was no getting around  it.  Without a hat, his special powers were...inoperative.

On his hat rack clung a single wool hat fiber. He sniffed it carefully, recalling the happy,

carefree days when it perched atop his head. Where it belonged. Atop his head.

Now, heaven only knew where it had been taken. Perhaps...no...he wouldn't let his mind go there.

It was more than a man could be expected to bear.

But, where, WHERE would hatnappers TAKE it? He would have to think like one of them, not an easy

task for one so naturally noble. Hatnappers...a form of humanity so low he could barely imagine their

mental processes, the depravity of their very souls.

Dino, busy with Monday night Bingo, could not accompany him, but thoughtfully suggested

he avoid taking any trolley with the letter "T" marked on it anywhere. Later, Terry really

wished he'd asked Dino...why.

They were obviously playing games with his mind, tormenting him.  They had left a

trail of hat fibers all through the city, glued to womens' purse straps. It took him over

an hour just to go two blocks, having, as he did, to stop every woman and ask if he

could peer closely at her straps.

Many refused his request, some...firmly.

He devoted much serious thought to this problem...

deciding to try a more open, friendly approach. "Hello there, Ma'am. May I

have a go at sniffing your straps?"

When the tear gas had finally worn off, he knew something else

would be required.

"I need to look at your straps...NOW!"

Finally, when enough fibers had been gathered, he turned his back on the

city...

his portmanteau filled, now, with mug shots of the most famous of the

international hat smugglers, a dark and sinister band band of evil-doers

who did evil.

Cleverly disguising himself as a male silverback gorilla,

he carried his ultimate weapon of destruction...a clipboard...

with no fuse.

He was, basically, a kind man...except on Mondays. Today was Monday.

And his hat had been napped.  Hence, the clipboard.

Sometimes he hated Mondays.

But not today.

Clipboard hidden safely in a rear pocket, he hopped the next flight to Cleveland.

The hatnappers, unaware of his awareness of Cleveland as the number one

international trading center of ill-gotten headwear, would be surprised.

He smiled. He liked surprises.

Trying to attract as little attention as possible, he entered the main portal of

the Cleveland Ritz Carlton

"I'd like a room," he asked, leaning casually on the desk. "Preferably a room with

no 'T' in its number."  He figured he might as well take Dino's advice and spread

it around a bit. Dino always gave good advice. Usually. Except that time about how

well the parachutes were packed.

"You SURE this is the elevator?" he asked suspiciously, pausing as the door slid

open.  "Si, senor," the Cleveland desk clerk responded. "I yam."

Terry kept a close eye, in fact he kept a close two eyes, on the floor numbers as the

elevator rose with a deafening whir of rotors.

A sudden, unpleasant thought hit him. WHEN was the last time he'd been in an

elevator with...rotors?

NO! The hatnappers must have been aware of his arrival! Either that or there was

a 'T' hidden somewhere on the elevator!

A sudden idea came to him!

Whipping out his clipboard, he jammed it into the control panel instantly

causing the elevator doors to open.  Trying to look nonchalant, he stepped

casually out, made his way to the stairs and walked quietly back down to

the lobby.

Again, trying to appear at ease and unhurried so no one would notice, he asked the

desk clerk, "Would the infamous, callous hatnappers happen to be having lunch in

the hotel restaurant?"

"No, senor," replied the clerk truthfully, not mentioning that it was dinnertime and

nothing less than 75 hatnappers were having prime rib.

Terry was...relieved.   Despite how public a place the lobby really was. He was so

relieved, in fact, he failed completely to notice the clerk had not once inserted a

tilde when addressing him, dead giveaway of an Ohio hatnapper. When they

were alive, they seldom parted with things so freely.

Turning to leave the lobby, his attention was drawn to a dark stain spreading out

from under the restaurant door, seeping steadily across the deep pile of the purple

and green striped carpeting.

Hoping no one would notice, he quickly sopped up several samples with the yellow

sponge he always kept clipped to the clippy thing on the front of his clipboard. The

sponge's name was Bob.  But that's another story entirely.

Carefully he examined the sponge-sopped stain, a look of stunned awareness spreading

across his features. Fibers!

Did they think, did they REALLY think wool hat fibers in sponge-soaked seeping

stains would go unnoticed? By HIM??  Did they not KNOW his level of personal

expertise in all matters concerning beef sauce? HA!

Pretending to be a napkin, he entered the hotel restaurant, the evil eaters completely

unaware as he slid gracefully, though completely unfolded, between the tables.

Perhaps it was his tongue. He'd forgotten...again...to retract it when going into full

napkin mode.  Someone with a sharp eye suddenly called out, "LOOK! Look at the

napkin!"  All eyes turned in his direction.

Dropping all pretense now at being comprised of linen, Terry confronted the

hatnappers, slowly revealing his dreaded clipboard.

Hatless now for the better part of the day, no, make that the worse part of

the day...his mood was grim. He stood there calmly, his strong fingers sliding

two more clips onto his board, his eyes far away, remembering his hat.

Seventy-five forks clattered plateward as he began to speak, his voice low,

steady, but holding such a note of quiet menace that every hatnapper began

to wish he'd taken up socksnitching instead...such was the raw force of a man

missing his headgear.

"I am vexed," he said. "I'm very, very vexed." His fingers kept stroking

smoothly along not just one or two, but all three of the clips on his board.

The hatnappers watched, their anxiety mounting by the second. That was

no ordinary clipboard, no, it was fuseless.

For a moment, he looked down, nearly overcome by the vast abyss of his

hatlessness, his thumb slightly snapping one of the clips over and over. Several

hatnappers fell senseless with fear onto the damp carpeting.

Seventy-five hatnappers were no match for a headgearless man with a

clipboard. He knew that. They knew that. They saw it in his eyes, in the

very blackness of his nose, the orange triangle upon his left cheek. They

were...doomed.  As one they screamed, "TAKE IT! Take it and GO!"

Hats began to fill the air, streaming toward him, tossed from hands

frantic with self-preservation.

But there was only...one...hat he was interested in. HIS hat.

Slipping it quickly atop his head, he saluted those of the hatnappers who were

still conscious, turned...

...and took the elevator back up to his room, a happy man once again.

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