STATEMENT

I bought a hat. The sign outside the shop said, ‘summer hats now in.’
Inside the shop a woman was trying on a hat, pulling it side to side, watching herself in the mirror.
‘There’s a mirror here you can use,’ said a woman’s voice behind me, coming to my rescue.
I turned round to see her place carefully from behind the counter, a mirror. I tried on two hats.
‘The straw ones better,’ she said. ‘That one’s just nothing, but the straw one makes a statement.’
‘You think so?’ I said – a moment’s pause - ‘Then, I’ll take the straw one,’ I said, ‘I want a hat that makes a statement.’
She took the hat. I put the other one back on the hat stand.
‘I’ll cut the label off,’ she said using scissors she picked up from beside the till. ‘You don’t want that flapping around.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘it’d undermine the statement.’