[update #4]

A Scary Hat Up There.

I was up in the unfinished attic the other night – you know – the attic where you need to step on the top-most part of a 7 (seven) foot ladder to get into . . . the attic where once you do pull yourself up (and it is dusk turning into night) all you have is a flashlight and a little of the moon to guide your way around the creaking wood slat floor? Yeah – well this is that attic.

I was installing cable into a couple of the bedrooms in the temporary headquarters – and couldn’t figure out how to get over the rooms where the cable was supposed to go – there was a wall blocking my way – a creepy black wall that was maybe made of some sort of tar paper or something. It was one of those odd moments where the space that you are in isn’t matching up with the space that your brain is expecting/anticipating/calculating – where something just feels a bit off . . . So I started to run the flashlight over the wall (at which point it really started to feel like what I would imagine being an explorer – or at the very least an explorer in a video game would feel like) and then I found a seam in the wall – which lead to a hinge – boy was this getting exciting! I took a couple of steps back and then as clear as day there was a door in the middle of the wall with an old-timey metal sliding latch to keep it shut. I am not even going to lie – it was a scary entrance.

I took a quick breath and then unlocked the latch. The door opened – scraping the floor as it went – and there was the space from the room that my brain had been looking for – along with some old headboards, a crib and a shelf.

I ran the wires over the wall and then had to situate myself under the shelf so that I could pull them in the rest of the way . . . that was when I started to notice the things that were on the different shelves. There wasn’t all that much stuff and most of it was just old (like crumble when you touch it type of old) papers and a couple of those pull down and then flap-flap-flap when they go back up window shades. But then my flashlight hit the tip of a ribbon that was mostly buried under a bunch of bits of stuff – so I brushed some of the crumbles away – and had to back up (yes – I took a step back – indeed) – because there it was . . . a creepy creepy hat.

After shaking the hat off I showed it to my wire installing helper – who was stationed at the bottom of the ladder – and who seconded the notion that it was indeed a hat of the creepy variety . . . I put it back in it’s place – and went on about my cable installing business – always conscious of that hat on that shelf.

I don’t know the history of the hat – but I’m not sure that I need to. All I do need know is that it is about 12 (twelve) feet up and 8 (eight) feet to the right of where I sleep . . . and that the hat is in no way my friend.