The Tale of Wallace and His Tiny Paper Hats
By: Erica N
Tags: Humor, Funny, Hobby, Weird, Short Story

There was once a man named Wallace. He was a shut-in that lived in his mother’s home. Wallace would occasionally cut the grass and feed the birds while his mother was away to one of her boyfriend’s house. He sat in his mother’s home staring at the wall in the TV-less living room. The walls had flowery booger green wallpaper. The carpet was a shaggy dirty red color. The house was 50 years old but the carpet looked much older.

When Wallace was a boy, he never had any friends. He had one friend named Patrick but he doesn’t count as he was an imaginary friend. His mother tried to make Wallace get into sports like Baseball; he sucked at swinging. He tried basketball; he was too short. He tried soccer; he ran like a duck and always missed the ball when it came time to kick it even when it was sitting still. He tried tennis; too many balls hit his face. He tried Badminton; the same thing. He tried football; he was too small. The football players usually used him as a football replacement and tossed him across the field.

Wallace tried joining clubs like the book club; the books were too long and he always fell asleep during the meetings. He tried the art club; he didn’t know how to art enough to fit in. He tried the chess club; chess confused him. He tried the math club; that was no better. He tried the fitness club; he fell off a treadmill 13 times and can’t even run for ten minutes without complaining about his bad pinky toe. He tried the Breakfast Club; he hated that movie.

Young Wallace

Throughout his years, Wallace grew to accept that he was an oddball, a weirdo, a freak of nature or something else. Now as a 37-year-old man and still living in his mother’s house, Wallace found something he was finally good at doing: Making tiny paper hats.

This tiny hat is about the size of a walnut.

Wallace made about 100 paper hats per day. He made a hat for every occasion. A hat for fancy dinner parties, birthdays, holidays, dental visits, funerals, DMV visits, court orders, etc.

Witzky, Norman, Baba, and Wobble-Wobble

Everything in the house had their own little hat. The lamp had a hat. The couch had a hat. The microwave and even the birdcage had a little hat. He even made a hat for each of his mother’s 4 birds; Witzky, Norman, Baba, and Wobble-Wobble all loved their hats.

No one was aware of Wallace’s hidden talent. He made tiny paper hats for his own enjoyment. Wallace spent about 14 hours per day making nothing but paper hats. It was to the point that everything in the house had a hat. All the wings of the living room ceiling fan had a hat. All the spoons, knives, forks and plates had their own tiny hat. Wallace gave all ten of his fingers tiny hats. Next thing, the house was flooded with tiny hats.

The tiny paper crown

When his mother returned home from visiting one of her boyfriends, her mouth gaped: “WALLACE!” Wallace swam in his sea of hats to the front door. He greeted his mother and asked if she would like a hat. The tiny paper hats were up to her nose. Her speech was inaudible. Wallace assumed she said yes, and placed a tiny paper crown on her big frizzy red hair. She was the queen of the household after all.

And there sat Wallace and his mother on the couch together like mother and son. They stare at the booger green wallpaper with nothing but tiny paper hats surrounding them.