I am "That Guy".

            For the past few months, I’ve been working with the most professional cleaning crew I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know such a group existed. I appreciate working there. The standards are high, and I don’t mind abiding by them. But, I did allow myself a break when people at work started talking about decorating my hat. I told them that if I was given decorative buttons, they certainly would go up. Then, around the time of my third pin, I knew that I was going to be ‘that guy’. The one who wears innumerable pins on his hat. I found myself game to the challenge.

            Before I continue, though, I have something to confess. During my waking hours, I am usually wearing a baseball cap. Sometimes, even as I sleep. Not only that, I think of the cap as a ‘hat’. Throughout this piece, whenever I use the word ‘hat’, I’m actually referring to my cap. Please allow me this small conceit. Hey! I have an idea. I’ve thought of a great way to avoid confusion:

GLOSSARY

Hat = A hat. (Or a baseball cap, to someone who rarely wears a proper hat.)

            Being the one who wears a buncha pins on his hat comes with a certain responsibility, yes, but it is also a circular relationship. It is both a reflection and the driving force of an overall dynamic.

            My coworkers know me. They know that I may get squirrelly and obsessive over a malfunctioning soap dispenser, and that it’s just as likely that I would be perfectly calm in a flood. They also know that I’m not ‘in a band’, so, of course, I write. The people I work with know these things, so they give me decorative pins to wear on my hat.

            You want examples. Okay. One pin that I have on my hat is actually one that I found on the sidewalk. It’s an eye crying, with a kind of gothic tone. Another pin, which was given to me by a co-worker, has a cog encircled by the words “Safety Is Job One”. That puppy went right on the front of the hat.

            I think it is wonderful that people give me pins to wear on my hat. And, there aren’t many negatives. One is that I wish I had more hat. Another negative, and some of you may know this, is that janitorial work can be a risky game. (Actually, where I work, we refer to ourselves as ‘Housekeepers’.)

            Anyway, housekeeping can be hazardous. For example, stall doors in public restrooms, when provoked, can be a bane to humankind. Pain is the price of privacy, and the janitor has to bear the cost. The doors swing about and jut into those bathroom aisles like fans reaching for their favorite pro wrestler as they march down the aisle to the ring. They bristle with knobs and hooks sinister in their chrominess. They seem to use all of the immovable force in their dense pith to catch elbows and hips and the occasional head with what seem to be fundamental ju-jitsu skills. Or Aikido. Anyway, after the end of a shift one day, I was informed that I had a small bruise on my cheek. I realized that it had come from earlier in the afternoon, when I had been on special assignment (no kidding!), rushing through a bathroom, and a hook on the inside of a stall door had scored a coup. When it happened, I’d noticed it only as much as Patrick Mahomes would have noticed a defensive tackle grabbing his jersey as he scrambled. I was busy at the time. But, what if one of those vengeful doors swings right onto a pin on my hat? I may need stitches. At a Work Clinic.  

            (Cue two foreboding chords on large organ.)

            Imagine. The work clinic doctor there would first give me a queasy, world-weary look. But, things would perk up once he looked at the wound!

            “Why, that’s quite a divot!” he would exclaim. “And, how did you do this?”  

            And, I would tell him.

            “A pin on your cap!” he would say, having worn a proper hat with some regularity. “Never seen that before. Which pin? (reading…) ‘Safety Is Job One’. How ironic!”  

            But, lately, I’ve found that some people are a bit thrown off by a guy with a buncha pins on his hat. I thought it would be the opposite. I always thought domestic tranquility reigns when I accept a new pin, and put it on my hat.

            I realize that this is an age-old problem; people being taken aback with all the buttons. I imagine that this was a problem even in ancient times. Take Socrates. He could have been a fan of the button, and had them pinned all along his sash. Plato doesn’t mention it, but neither did he say what the guy ate for breakfast. There were more important things to say about his mentor. Socrates may have had, for example, a button that said ‘Plan Ahead’, with the last letters all crunched up and running down the edge because the one who’d written the phrase obviously hadn’t planned ahead. Or, a button his nephew had given him that he didn’t entirely agree with, but wore since his nephew gave it to him- a button saying: “Epicureanism Is Not A Crime.”

            I guess what I’m trying to say is that people shouldn’t judge others simply through the sheer amount of buttons they wear. And, hey! I got to compare myself to both Patrick Mahomes and Socrates.

            I haven’t sworn an oath out loud, but I feel like I’ve taken an oath, like a beauty pageant winner, to wear a buncha pins on my hat until the end of my term, or until incapacity hinders my ability to serve. If the latter’s the case, the runner-up will have to take up the glittery helm.