Skull Cap

1 review for Skull Cap

1. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Richie Zaborowske – January 12, 2024

   I’ll never forget the first night I wore my HAD Skull Cap. The day before a blizzard had pelted our town with snow. The next evening my son asked if I would walk him down to his school to play on the snowbank there. It was a school night and he still had math homework and his reading log to fill out. Not to mention, early the next morning I was scheduled for Mohs surgery to remove a spot of melanoma on my nose. I had had the procedure once before and the doctor mauled my shoulder like a Rottweiler with his scalpel. So I was nervous and the last thing I wanted to do was venture outside. But my son is eleven, and I couldn’t remember the last time he asked me to do anything with him. Although it’s a cliche to say that kids grow up overnight, it doesn’t make it any less true, nor does it take away the sting; one moment I was my son’s hero and he was eagerly showing me off to his friends on career day, the next moment my wife and I were under his strict orders not to acknowledge him at his school concert*. So even though it was late and dark and probably not a good idea, I jumped at the chance to hang out with him. After wrangling with my snow pants and boots, I slipped on my new Skull Cap. I have an abnormally large head, so I was thankful that the hat, as stated on the website, truly did “fit most,” and I had no problem putting it on. Stepping outside, the frigid air caught me by surprise, but then I was surprised by the warmth of the Skull Cap. Maybe it has something to do with the 60% cotton to 40% acrylic blend or maybe it’s the raw heat of so many gnarly skulls. I’m not sure. But I do know that my ears were toasty as the two of us walked down to the school underneath a black sky filled with bright, frozen stars. Everyone was still hunkered down from the storm, and the only sound that could be heard was our clomping boots echoing off the houses. I tried to fill this silence with small talk, but my son, as is often the case, remained quiet and sullen. Finally, at the foot of the snowbank, which actually turned out to be a huge mound at least as tall as a one story house, he said he wanted to play because he didn’t get a chance at school because the kids thought he was weird and wouldn’t allow him to help build a fort. My wife and I didn’t know the specifics, but we knew he was having a hard time at school and there was nothing we could do because he had forbidden us to intervene. Standing there with snow and silence all around, I tried in vain to think of something to say, something to make everything okay. Scattered on the mound were crude forts built with snowball walls and holes dug into the side of the hill. I stomped up to one of the walls and kicked it as hard as I could; a blast of snow detonated in the air as the wall crumbled. I kicked another wall and then another. I lifted a chunk of ice and blasted open one of the holes. I lifted another chunk and just as I was about to decimate a snowman perched on top of the hill I froze; my son was watching me. He looked confused and sad and cold. I dropped the chunk of ice. I could feel him judging me and sweat forming on my back**. The destruction around me was mortifying. My rage had solved nothing. Let’s build, I told him. And the two of us did. Out there in the cold we erected walls and hollowed out hiding places and dug a tunnel clear through to the other side of the mound. We kept working and sculpting far past bedtime until we were both too exhausted to worry about whatever cruelties awaited us in the morning.

   *Which was awkward because all the kids knew me from attending career day for so many years. So instead of fooling everyone, I just looked like a jerk who wouldn’t wave to his child.

   **But thankfully not on my forehead due to the HAD Skull Cap’s ‘breathable cotton blend.’