My husband Jimmy suffers from a lack of natural cover. 

Hence, every time he steps out a door, he pops a baseball cap onto his head.  He has been particularly diligent about this since we moved to Arizona last spring.  At one point, he had a rather large collection of caps, including a nice Muskie Fest one from his parents and two or three from his alma mater.  

Jimmy usually takes his cap off when he goes inside.  I think it is because he needs to air his scalp out a bit.  Occasionally, he puts the hat down somewhere, perhaps the sun sets, and, poof, the hat is left behind.  His collection dwindles.  By the time summer arrived in Phoenix this year he was down to one hat, an ugly black thing my father had loaned to him on one of our trips home.  Bama, it said.  And he lost it.

Jimmy was thus forced to go digging through my stash of caps to find some good artificial cover.  He reluctantly started wearing this one (the only one that fit):

My hat

He wore it to work and I think the Arizona wingnuts there must've thought he was trying to be funny.  He was.  Then John Edwards was caught with his pants down and Jimmy didn't like the joke any more.  We stopped in a sporting goods store and selected the least ugly hat from the vast and varied selection of Arizona Diamondbacks and Arizona Cardinals caps.  At the counter, the cashier asked, "Cardinals fan?"  "Uh, not really," Jimmy struggled to explain.  "I'm just not gonna wear this one anymore," he said as he nodded his head and wiggled Kerry/Edwards in the guy's face.

All of this is by way of explaining that I really invested in the election of 2004.  I bought the freaking hat.  I wore the freaking hat!  I had signs in the yard and Kerry and Edwards had my money to help fuel their campaign.  My heart was in it. Of course, in retrospect, we all know what a desperate, clinging act it was.  And yet how we could not give it up. The idea that George W. Bush could get re-elected was positively laughable.  The man was a moron who dragged us into a ridiculous war!  What a sickening blow it was when it happened.

When the 2008 election campaign started I was much more reluctant to invest my heart.  Early on, I put my money on Obama, rejecting all other candidates out of hand, due to that fetid stench of the past that clung to them all. I doled out my donations to Obama piecemeal, nursing the need for hope.  But I kept my heart, my lawn, and my fashion accessories out of it.   

In 2008, we moved to a lonely, hot bastion of conservatism.  And then my mother died.  The safety of my heart became more and more paramount to me and any investment in Obama had to be suppressed.  By November 3rd this was not an easy task -- there were so many hopeful signs. 

What a glorious day and a monumental relief November 4th was.  I smiled broadly for the first time in weeks.  By January 20th, I plan to be positively giddy.  I didn't really invest much of my own, but I will reap the profits.

Jimmy recently got a new hat: