My sister, as will be generally known to readers of teacupmammoths.com, recently returned from a trip to Mongolia (Motto: Come for the yaks, stay for the nightlife), in addition to going to Mongolia though, she also spent a little time in China and Russia.  Now, Russia, as I understand things, has kind of turned into one big frozen Communist yard sale since the the Soviet Union lost the Cold War (Though a number of military and economic factors contributed to this loss, the decisive event occurred when Ronald Reagan beat Mikhail Gorbachev at a game of HORSE which was appointed to decide whether Capitalism or Communism was better.  For the historically curious among you, it wasn’t even close, Reagan beat Gorbachev quite handily while earning merely a HOR for himself).  Anyways, it turns out that even now, you’re hardly off the plane when you arrive in Moscow before people are trying to sell you all sorts of Communist leftovers.  AK-47's, red cranial spots, and or course nuclear weapons are all available at low, low prices for the interested tourist.  But at least one other thing was also to be bought there, and that is what my sister decided to bring home for me.  What as it, you ask?  It was, she told me, a Lenin hat.

            Now, I don’t know about you, but I was never the biggest Lenin fan in the world.  I mean, I know he was an absolutely essential part of the Beatles, but I think that once he went solo and became a Communist dictator, most of his songs sucked, and smacked of the malicious influence of Yoko Ono.  Nonetheless, I was severely excited to hear that my sister was bringing me home a Lenin hat.  I mean, Russia is frequently called “The Disney World of Siberia” for a good reason right?  So I was all atwitter with anticipation as to what physical form the awesomeness of this hat was going to take.  I figured that since at Disney World they sell those Goofy hats, that look like you scalped Goofy and turned the top half of his face into a ghoulish yet festive chapeau, complete with dangly ears, a Lenin hat would be much in the same vein, since Lenin is generally considered to be the most Goofyesque Communist Dictator in history (some would hold that this title ought to go to Pol Pot, but I say his penchant for genocide makes him much more of a Donald Duck dictator).  Already I had imagined how very stylish and bitchin’ I would look after donning such a unique piece of headgear as a Lenin hat; his fearsome face glowering at all who opposed my tyrannical reign, his long, floppy ears merrily blowing in the summer breeze or possibly serving as a makeshift chin strap in windy conditions, but alas, it was not to be.

            Mt sister informed me that in fact, the hat, while bearing numerous Lenin-themed pins and buttons, did not, in the strictest sense, conform to the shape of his head.  Instead, it had more the shape of those oval hats that army guys and 1950s burger making dudes generally wear.  So, when my sister handed me the hat as we drove along through the scenic Dismal Swamp, home of all sorts of scenic man-eating alligators and possums, I put it on my head immediately (the hat, not the swamp, which would have been rather messy).  I must say, I looked ever so dapper whilst wearing it, but even so, it brought with it many a peril all its own.  For instance, there was some guy behind us who was all tailgating and stuff, like he wanted to pass us, but even when we slowed down, he never did, I surmise that the driver, taking my hat to be a token of my allegiance, mistook me for some kind of Commie Pinko spy, sent to steal America’s superior swamp technology and take it back to the Motherland.

            In addition, it seems that decades of oppressive rule have left most Russians with tiny heads, and as an unfortunate side effect of this trend, the hat displayed an alarming tendency to fall off if I didn’t just sit there and balance it the right way.  This would have been okay, but every time a song I liked came on the radio and I tried to rock out to it, it would fly off and smack into other things in the car.  From this I concluded that Russians must not rock out on a regular basis, and if they do, they must have special hats made specifically for that purpose; which, if there is any justice in the world, will bear a more striking resemblance to Goofy.