Mar 13

Last summer at Warped Tour something completely unexpected but amazing happened. As we walked by one of the many booths selling hats, sunglasses, bags and whatnot, one specific hat lured me in. The guy in charge said Assalamo Alaikum to me, or peace be with you, and I responded Walaikum Assalam (may peace also be with you). I was confused. I thought what is a Muslim other than me doing at Warped Tour? That’s completely unusual. He proceeded to ask me questions like was I Muslim, where I was from etc. He must have noticed how much I looked at that hat because he asked me if I liked it. I was embarrassed but nodded my head. Just as I was going to walk away he asked me if I wanted it. I said no and he asked why. I said because I have no money. In reality I did, I just did not want to spend $20 on a simple hat that I couldn’t even wear in public. For some reason he really wanted me to have the hat or he respected me for being Muslim (I think the second one) because he said I could have it for free. My friend and I were shocked! I replied, “What? For free?!” He said “Yeah anything here! You can have for free!” I looked at him in shock then looked at my friend who seemed to be pretty jealous. I couldn’t believe I was just about to get a free amazing fedora hat. It took me a while to decide but I went with the green and black plaid one. I thanked him so much and immediately put the hat on, which made me look completely ridiculous. I wore it for the next hour or so and when it was time to get back in the mosh pits I somehow fit it in my backpack. It was probably my favorite thing I’ve ever gotten from Warped Tour just because of the story behind it. I guess there was a benefit of being the only one to every wear a scarf at a concert. I was happy that someone there respected the religion enough to give me a free item. Although everything seemed great and the rest of Warped was as awesome as I’d hoped it would be, something traumatic happened. It was probably a few weeks later when my other friend and I went to the mall. Of course I had to show off my new hat so I wore it while I drove. When we got there my friend wanted to wear it inside so I let her. When we left she gave it back and because my hands were full with the keys and a drink in one hand and the hat in the other, I had to put my hat on top of the car in order to open it. I put my drink in the cup holder, put my seatbelt on, and started the car. That was it. We just drove away not even thinking about it. We got home and as I was bringing in everything from the car I couldn’t find my hat. I knew it had to be in the car somewhere so I didn’t panic too much. After about 5 minutes of looking, I panicked and realized I left it on top of the car. My friend was freaking out as much as I was because she knew how much it meant to me not to mention it looked pretty sweet. I couldn’t believe it but she actually wanted to go back to the mall to check if it was in the parking lot somewhere. Thankfully the mall is only 12 minutes away. We parked and checked under cars, on top of cars, in front of cars, everywhere…and nothing. It was gone. I was terribly sad and felt like such an idiot for putting something I love so much on top of the car to blow away. But we also wondered why someone would want another random person’s used hat. It was kind of gross. We gave up after a couple minutes and went really slow on the way to the highway in case it had stayed on the car that long down the road. There was still no sign of my precious green hat so I gave up and sat there in misery. Recently when I went to the PacSun in the outlets, I saw a 3 dollar hat that was exactly the same except for the colors. Even though it would remind me of the pain I went through, it was only 3 dollars and I knew I had to have something to replace it. I guess a lesson I learned is material things are not that important and yes, they can get lost. There will be other items to replace our material needs in the future.

Done