There’s just something about a new cap.

Little boys, men, teenagers … it doesn’t matter.  They always think they need another one.

Women tend to collect stuff like dolls, glass figurines, and thematic things like “butterflies”.  Sometimes we end up collecting stuff by accident.

I had an aunt who once mentioned she liked owls, so people started giving them to her for every occasion.  She never intended to collect them, but she ended up with owl cups, owl paintings, and owl slippers.  For years and years, she collected owls.  She told me, after half a century of this, that she really didn’t like owls all that much.

I’ve mentioned lots of times I love diamonds, but I still don’t have diamond slippers. Hmmmmm.

I ended up collecting boxes.  I lived in Europe for a short while and bought little boxes from several of the places I visited, all made out of native material.  Now my mom travels a lot and brings me a little box from each of the countries she visits.  I love all my little treasures.

Women like little pretties we can pick up, turn over, run our hands across and say, “Oooh, this is lovely!”

But guys gravitate towards shot glasses, guns, dead animals hanging on the walls … and caps.  They can have a closet full of them, but we’ll be at a ball game and my son and husband both will insist they “need” a new one.

I didn’t understand their penchant for covering their heads until I realized it wasn’t about “needing”, but rather about “collecting”.

Last night I walked into the hurricane disaster area formerly known as my son’s room.  Just past the shot glasses on the dresser was a dead deer head hanging on the wall.  Caps were hanging from each of the tines of his rack; more caps had fallen to the floor below.

I suggested he go through all these caps and give some to Goodwill.  When there was no answer, I turned around to see him aghast with a look that said, “Those caps are like my children … don’t you dare give them away!”

There were four or five Texas A&M caps, several from baseball teams from years past, and a couple of Astros caps.  Then there was a bunch that had seen better days … faded with rips in their bills.  I picked up one of these.

“Can I throw this one away?” I asked him.

He was shocked.  “No! That’s one of my best caps!  I paid a lot of money for it!” he exclaimed.

It turns out it came from one of those stores that sells ripped clothes for twice the price of the non-ripped ones.  These kids actually pay for caps that look like they need replacing.  Boggles my mind.

Then there was the bright green and yellow John Deere cap sitting all by itself next to the shot glasses.  I picked it up and was headed toward the dead deer to hang it up.

“No, mom, you can’t hang that one up.  It’s my favorite cap.”  What that meant was that it was worthy of a special place amongst his collection; it certainly wasn’t going to share the spotlight with the other caps.

I tried gathering the fallen caps to hang on a second dead deer head but was informed that this particular dead animal was more special than the first one, and he didn’t want caps covering it.

I gave up.  He will keep collecting caps until he can’t crawl into his bed, I’m sure.

Just don’t EVER complain about my box collection.