Shaun Phillips and The Hat of All Hats
Chapter 5: Dad's Midlife Crisis

The week went by really fast. We still had no idea as to where this hat came from or why it did what it did but I CAN tell you one thing. I was having SO MUCH FUN with it!!!

One night I was thinking about aliens and a spaceship landed in our swimming pool! Another time I was looking at a book about insects and then every room of the house filled up with creepy crawly things. Oh and it didn’t stop there. No. Things got better and better!

One day a Tyrannosaurus came wandering up to the house. He sunk his teeth into the roof and ripped a piece of it off. Then he let out a mighty roar and the whole house shook. Katie was screaming; Mom was screaming even louder. Dad was swinging his golf club around trying to scare the beast away. You should’ve been there. It was awesome!

Then there was the time when werewolves swarmed the backyard. Believe me when I tell you that they’re bigger than they look in storybooks. They howled at the full moon and dug through our trash cans. They left such a mess!

And I know this sounds kind of crazy but there was even a night when giant-sized vegetables came walking out of the garden and tried to attack us. I’m not kidding! I even got a nasty bruise on my arm from a very bossy eggplant. So if anyone tells you vegetables are good for you, don’t believe them!

The hat brought so much excitement; anything I imagined appeared right there in my house. It was beyond awesome and I really wanted was to tell my friends all about it. But every time I begged and pleaded to bring the hat to school I was told “no!”

This just didn’t seem fair to me. Seriously, I was a 10-year old with an excellent imagination and I couldn’t help it that I found a magic hat at the store.

Would you be able to leave the hat alone? Could you keep it a secret from your friends?

I didn’t think so.

Anyway, Sunday arrived and that was the day we usually cleaned our house.

That afternoon Mom and Katie went outside to sweep the back porch and wash off the patio chairs. Dad went out to the garage to go through some boxes and I was sent upstairs to clean my room.

Everyone knows that it’s much easier to unclean a room than to clean it. And it’s more fun too! However, I dragged myself up to my room and started picking up the clothes that were all over my floor. It seemed like a never-ending pile.

Once my clothes were picked up I moved on to my video games. I reached for one of them when I heard a car with a loud muffler and a deep thumping stereo pull into our driveway.

I wondered who it was so I left my room and ran downstairs. I opened the front door to take a peek.

“Huh?” I stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t believe it! There was a really awesome sports car parked in our driveway and my dad was sitting in the driver’s seat.

“Hi Shaun! Check out my ride! What do you think?”

“Dad did you really buy that car?”

“Well not exactly.”

I was about to ask more questions but then I saw it. Dad was wearing my hat! That didn’t seem fair to me. He had set so many rules about the hat and now he had taken it and used it himself! Maybe he needed some rules set too.

“Dad!” I shouted. “Why were you using my hat?”

“I know I shouldn’t have done this.” He admitted. “I’m sorry I took your hat Shaun. But I just got excited. When I put the hat on and pulled out of the driveway in my old sedan I imagined how cool a sports car would be. The next think you know, I was driving one!”

It was a really cool car, way cooler than our normal car. It was bright red. The doors lifted up and the headlights looked evil!

“Come on Shaun get in. Let’s go for a ride!”

So I got in and Dad peeled the car out of the driveway. The Wilsons were sitting on their front porch staring at us as we took off down the street going a hundred miles an hour! Well, okay, we weren’t really going that fast but it felt like we were going super-fast.

“Isn’t this great Buddy?” Dad shouted.

“Yeah this is awesome Dad but the road turns up ahead. Are we going to be able to make it? We’re going so fast!” I grabbed hold of the arm on the door and held on the best I could. I was a little scared but please don’t tell anyone that.

“Let’s replace out! Hang on!” Dad said and pulled the wheel tight to his left as we rounded a corner going wicked fast!

“Yeah! That was excellent!” Dad roared. “DID YOU SEE THAT? Did you see how we took that corner?”

“Yeah! That was great!”

“Do you want to go home now?” He asked. “Or do you want to see what this baby does on the highway?”

“No, I don’t want to go home yet. Keep driving Dad!”

We cruised down the highway passing every car we saw.

“Hey Dad what does the horn sound like?”

“Beeeeeeeeeeep!” Dad hit the horn as we passed a big truck hauling logs.

“BEEEP-BEEP!” The truck driver honked his horn right back at us!

I looked over at Dad and he was smiling. I hadn’t seen him that excited in a long time. We were having a great afternoon together.

We got off the highway and pulled into an empty parking lot near some old factory buildings.

“Dad, why did you pull in here?”

“I pulled in here so we could do this! Hang on Shaun!” Dad grabbed the wheel tight and before I knew it the car was spinning!

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Doing donuts in a parking lot, in a sports car is EXCELLENT!

“Ha, ha! Wow! This is great!” Dad shouted.

“Yeah!” I shouted back.

After a few spins we left the parking lot and headed back on to the highway. Dad turned the radio on and blasted the music really loud as we drove back toward home.

“Hey I like this one.” I said, recognizing the next song that came on.

Dad turned it up even louder and started singing along. Well really he was just making up his own words to the song.

“Waah! Oh Yeah!” He belted it out.

“Dad that’s not how it goes!”

“Oh come on, the song needs a few squeals and doo das! Waah, oh yeah, oh yeah! Come on Shaun add something to it and give me your best howl!”

“Ow!” I shouted and broke into laughter.

We were singing and howling our way down the highway when the radio shut off all of the sudden and a light on the dashboard started blinking.

“What happened, Dad? What does that blinking light mean?”

“Bummer; we’re running out of gas! I hope we’ve got enough to get home on.”

So it turns out that even a make-believe sports car can run out of gas!

I didn’t want the day to end and neither did Dad. But we headed for home; taking one more corner at high speed and then back to our neighborhood. Dad pulled into our driveway and slammed on the brakes. There was a loud squeal of the tires as the car came to a stop. There were even smoking tread marks left in the pavement!

“Best afternoon ever!” Dad shouted as we high-fived each other.

Of course all the excitement ended quickly when we saw Mom and Katie standing on the steps, shaking their heads at us.

“Joe! What were you thinking?” Mom asked Dad as we got out of the car. “What if someone saw you?”

“Hi there neighbors!” Mr. Wilson called to us and waved as he and Mrs. Wilson headed over our way.

“Great!” Mom grunted at Dad. “Someone DID see you!”

“That’s quite a car.” Mr. Wilson said, reaching our driveway. “It must have cost a fortune!”

“Actually it belongs to a co-worker of mine. “ Dad lied. “He’s out of town and asked me to take good care of his car for him.”

“Wow that is really special.” Mr. Wilson said, walking around the car, looking down at its tires and peering into the windows. “I’d sure like to go for a ride in this beauty.”

“Jennifer.” Mrs. Wilson got right up in my mom’s face. “I’ll make some tea and cookies for us while the men go for a drive.”

“Oh gee! Gladys that is so kind of you but we actually have somewhere we need to be in a few minutes so I guess we’ll have to take a raincheck on that.”

“Oh. What do you have going on this evening?”

“Oh well… there’s an event at the school tonight for Shaun’s class.”

“Really? I didn’t hear anything about this?” Gladys said. “I’m always notified if there is a weekend event. Usually I’m asked to provide snacks for such occasions.”

Mom was caught in a bad lie. You see Mrs. Wilson is the head cook in the school’s cafeteria. And she makes it her business to know everything that goes on at Birch Wood Elementary.

“Well……. this was something planned by the parents.” Mom went on. “And we’ve all signed up to bring a dish. That must be why you weren’t contacted! We really need to get going now but thanks for stopping by!”

The nosy duo walked back to their house.

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Mom turned and glared at Dad. I thought she was going to explode.

“I’m sorry dear.” Dad explained. “Look I know I got a little carried away but you’ve got to admit it’s a pretty sweet ride!” He gave my mom the ‘puppy dog eyes.’

“Humph! I’ll give you that but it doesn’t mean that I’m okay with this!” Mom replied, stomping her foot. “Now pull that thing into the garage, say the stupid jingle and turn it back into your old car before anyone else sees it!”

Later that evening Mom made our absolute favorite dish ever; MACARONI AND CHEESE FROM A BOX!

She scooped some on to plates for Katie, me, and herself and then she brought the rest back to the kitchen.

“Hey. What about me?” Dad asked. “I love that stuff too!”

“Oh I’m sorry.” Mom responded sarcastically. “I only scoop food for RESPONSIBLE people!”

I was so surprised; Dad was even more surprised. I kind of felt sorry for him. But I also wish I had had a camera so I could’ve captured the look on his face!