Tying One On

Tracy Beckerman
Mon, 15 Dec 2025 21:00:00 -0800
Lifestyle

I am a scarf person, but I am married to a non-scarf person. Conversely, my husband is a hat person, and I am not a hat person. He says scarves are itchy and make him look like he has no chin. I say hats ruin my hair and make my head look like Charlie Brown's. So whenever it gets cold out, he tells me to put on a hat, I tell him to put on a scarf, and we both ignore each other.

It's truly amazing we've stayed married for as long as we have.

We'd been going through this routine for many, many years, and then, suddenly, one day my husband had a major wardrobe breakthrough.
Updated: Tue Dec 16, 2025

I am a scarf person, but I am married to a non-scarf person. Conversely, my husband is a hat person, and I am not a hat person. He says scarves are itchy and make him look like he has no chin. I say hats ruin my hair and make my head look like Charlie Brown's. So whenever it gets cold out, he tells me to put on a hat, I tell him to put on a scarf, and we both ignore each other.

It's truly amazing we've stayed married for as long as we have.

We'd been going through this routine for many, many years, and then, suddenly, one day my husband had a major wardrobe breakthrough.

"I've had a scarfipany," he declared.

"A what?" I said.

"A scarfipany," he said. "It's like an epiphany but it's about scarves."

I put the back of my hand to his forehead to make sure he wasn't ill and then asked him if he had been sniffing glue.

"No, seriously," he said. "All these years I've avoided wearing scarves because I couldn't wear them in a way that was comfortable."

"I know," I said. "Itchy, and no chin."

"Right," he said. "But I was in a store today and the salesman showed me a really soft scarf that wasn't itchy, and then — this is the important part — he showed me the perfect way to tie it."

"Which is ..." I wondered aloud.

"You always told me to wrap it. He said, don't wrap it. You have to loop it and pull it through!" He demonstrated with his new scarf and then looked at me like he was the caveman who'd discovered fire.

I stared at him for a minute. I wondered which was the more boring conversation I'd ever had in my life: the time I talked to two other moms about the best cleaning wipes, or this conversation about scarves.

I'd say it was a tie (no pun intended).

"I'm so happy for you," I said dryly.

"Now that we've solved my scarf problem, I think we should find a hat that works for you," he said.

I rolled my eyes. I had never met a hat that didn't make me look like Charlie Brown. The problem for me was twofold. I have very short hair and a very round face. The hair is the only thing that helps my face look less round. So when I cover the hair, blammo. I'm Charlie Brown. And then, when the hat comes off, my hair is so flattened out and staticky that I need a dryer sheet to rub over my head to get it under control.

Now, I'm not so vain that I will go out in in sub-freezing weather without a hat. But when I do, I make sure that everyone who sees me after I've worn the hat understands that I did it under duress and that I don't normally look like a mannequin with plastic hair glued to her head.

Then one night it was super cold, so my husband wore a hat and his new best friend, his looped scarf. I wore my wrapped scarf and one of my hated hats. When we got to the restaurant, I pulled off my hat, and my hair rose to the sky in one big staticky swoop and then flattened around my head.

"I hate hats," I said, scowling.

"You do actually look a little like Charlie Brown right now," my husband said.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Take off your scarf," I said. "I have another use for it."

"What?"

"I'm going to strangle you with it."