I am dead people.

It all started about five years ago when Dr. Rice first went out to DC to get her PhD. I was in Maryland at the time waiting to go on my mission, so I was happy to have my good friend future-Dr. Rice come out to my side of the country. Soon after she moved to DC, we planned a day to get together. There's so much to do in that area---my parents live between Baltimore and DC. It's close to Annapolis. There really is no shortage of things to do.

So when we asked my mom for a recommendation, she suggested we take a day to visit Historic Ellicott City, a beautiful old city nearby. So we went. And we soon discovered that Ellicott City was simply a city full of nothing but antique shops. It didn't take us long to get tired of that. On the whole, it was a pretty lame experience. So we went home, and that was possibly the day we also went squirrel fishing. I can't quite remember.

The thing is, while we were antique shopping, we found a collection of antique hats. And we tried them on. And we took our pictures in the antique hats. And I brought the pictures with me on my mission.

So fast forward to present time. Since that trip five years ago, Historic Ellicott City has become a joke between me and Dr. Rice. Any time we're together and there's some question about what we might do for fun, we bring up the possibility of taking a trip to Historic Ellicott City and seeing the antique shops.

Today I stopped in at an antique dealer on my way to Murray's house. I'm in the market for a good antique chair right now (to put in the corner of our guest room, and I promise to post a picture when we find one and I reupholster it, but that won't be until after we're married). As I walked through the aisles of overpriced junk, I came upon some antique hats. You might think that the hat experience wouldn't be quite as fun without Dr. Rice, but as I tried on hats and took my picture with them, I imagined all the fun I would have sending the pictures to Dr. Rice.

And I even thought about the blog post I would write about the whole thing. I mean, I even found a hat made from---I swear---squirrel tails. Which is so important to me and Dr. Rice since Dr. Rice has been cursed squirrel-wise ever since we went squirrel fishing. So, like I said, I had my own private photo shoot, which was very enjoyable.

When I got to Murray's, I told him about my experience and I brought out my iPhone to show him the pictures. What we saw caused a chill to go through Murray's body, and caused me to squeal. And I'm not normally the squealing type:


Now I don't know about you, but that picture freaks me right out. At the time I took it, I had glanced at the result and thought, "That's funny... my eyes were closed." So I took another.

Now I have only to conclude that I've been possessed by the spirit of the previous hat owner. And since it's a black hat with black mesh, it was probably a widow's hat. And the widow probably killed her husband and her children and that's why she wore this mourning hat. And most likely she was killed by a rabid squirrel because she also had a squirrel curse, and now her spirit has possessed me. Great.

No, but seriously, the picture really is creepy. Creepy, creepy, creepy. I wanted to delete it immediately, but better judgment set in and I decided to post it to the internet so that the whole world knows of my possession.

And now, to lighten the mood a little, I present you (and Dr. Rice) with my other antique hat pictures in which I am not so freaky. Well, unless wearing a hat made of severed squirrel tails is considered freaky. Which it is.