Why it was a bad idea for us to throw our hats in the air to celebrate New Year's day, pt. 1

A woman named MWT wrote me an e-mail:

"if people throw their hats in the air to celebrate things, do they ever get their hats back at the end? "

Sadly, had I read my Lovecraft, we would not subsequently have conducted an impromptu experiment as the TerrorBall™ dropped to mark the end of 2006. Alas, none of us had read our Lovecraft. And so, an innocent intern (Kaiser Phillips), janitor (Bob Twii), and our vice President of Marketing, Bill Sanderson III, lie dead.

Kaiser was not with us for very long, but he will be missed. Particularly since I, as the new least senior employee will have to get the coffee. Ordinarly, this would be merely annoying, but most members of our staff drink a special kind of Guatemalan coffee made from a bean which is stored only… in… the basement.

Oh God, I don't want to go down there again.

Bill Sanderson III held the VP of Marketing job for the longest anyone's held the post--36 days. We'll miss you, Bill. That job's going to be very tough to fill, especially since 6 VPs of Marketing have died in the past 11 months.

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From "The Lost Works of H. P. Lovecraft: "The Terrifying Story of the Hats"

"I repeat to you, gentlemen, that your inquisition is fruitless! I *know* what I saw! It was at a holiday sporting-event--the one called 'base-ball,' where the fans were getting ready to salute the Brooklyn Dodger Fred Merkle, for his fine work on the field. As he came out, there was a great cheer, which had started as a dull roar. The ladies applauded, and the gentlemen were quite pleased.

To salute him, they threw their hats in the air…

And then, the screaming, oh, gentlemen, the screaming! For the hats were not just hats, no, now they had *wings* and horrible ropes--nay, tentacles! They swooped down on the defenseless crowd, plucking their heads off like so many snapped toothpicks. Oh, the screaming, oh, the panic!

But those who were snapped were the lucky ones. For in some cases, the hats jammed themselves back onto selected heads, with a strange noise emanating from within--my God! It was SLURPING!

And when their feasting was done--for that's what it was, gentlemen--the hats flew in a great, swooping motion, into a terrible dark hole which opened up in the sky.

This is why I urge you not to wear your hats! Or to throw them!

You tell me it cannot have happened. Then where, I ask you, is Ms. Amelia Munson, and her eight-year-old daughter Sarah? Devoured by the hat-like-things they were! The hats! The hats! Oh, Cthulu! I see them still!"