While there are some infants in Gothamist's midst, there are times when we seriously doubt our ability to raise a child. These times are usually when we hear about how expensive college educations are becoming, anything related to an Amber alert, or when we read things like this New York magazine article about an innocent posting about a found hat that went horribly, horribly wrong. The place: An email forum of Park Slope parents. The found object: A colorful, some might say "wacky" hat which someone described as a "boy's hat." And that's when the floodgates opened:
Wondering how such a categorization would feel to a spiky-hat-wearing girl, Lisa wrote, “It’s innocent little comments like this that I find the most hurtful.” A third member responded soon after, saying such political correctness drove her “up the wall,” and a heated discussion ensued. Lisa’s supporters questioned their opponents’ commitment to “the free interchange of ideas and questions”—said one, “I have found in life that when the subject matter is difficult, there is always someone who wants to stifle the conversation”—while an opposing faction expressed facetious dismay that the original poster, who had described the hat as likely belonging to “an older child,” was not more considerate toward “younger children who happen to have large heads.”
Wah! Maybe Park Slope will require a seminar on how to describe found objects soon. Gothamist is probably going to be raked over the coals for calling the hat "wacky," but let's face it, relative to hats that look like animals, everything else is wacky.
Lost and found for adults: Craiglist - a cat was found in Fresh Meadows, an iPod found on Liberty Island and a camera and laptop was found on the Upper East Side.
Image of the offending hat from New York magazine
