The Pointy Hat Club

Once upon a time in a far away place called Dar Es Salaam there was a party attended by boys and girls who liked to wear pointy hats, including one girl who liked to wear a pointy hat, but who sometimes wore a rainbow-colored oven mitt on her head instead. The other boys and girls were very polite and never used the words "oven mitt" in front of the one girl because they knew it would make her very cross.

Some of the folks at the party weren't having a very good time. It seems that in some places there were boys who wanted to live with other boys (the way Mommy and Daddy live together) who had been allowed to join the Pointy Hat Club. The people at the party murmured as how this wasn't a good thing, and agreed that boys who wanted to live with other boys and girls who wanted to live with other girls (the way Mommy and Daddy live together) shouldn't be allowed to join the Pointy Hat Club. The girl who sometimes liked to wear an oven mitt nodded her head and said that was all right with her too.

When all the boys and girls got home from the party, the girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt said that she had not nodded her head along with the others who wore pointy hats and that, furthermore, she thought there ought to be more boys who lived with other boys and girls who lived with other girls (the way Mommy and Daddy live together) in the Pointy Hat Club.

When the other folks who had been at the party heard this, they were very cross. Other boys and girls who were neighbors of the girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt said that they would go elsewhere to play. The girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt said that that was okay with her, but that they had to leave behind their balls, bats, gloves, hockey sticks, tennis rackets, croquet mallets, badmitton rackets, shuttlecocks and nets, and any other game equipment, because it all belonged to her.

When some far away members of the Pointy Hat Club heard what happened to all the boys and girls who refused to play with the girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt, they were sad. They said to those boys and girls, "It's okay, we will still play with you. And, even though we are poor and do not have many toys or games, we will still be your friends and treat you as loyal members of the Pointy Hat Club."

The next time the Pointy Hat Club met, it was a Grand Party. Members from all over the world were there--except that nearly one third of the members of the Pointy Hat Club refused to come, because they said that the girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt and her friends refused to play according to the rules and could not be trusted.

When the Grand High Poobah of the Pointy Hat Club saw and heard what was going on, he held his head in his hands and wondered why he had ever become Grand High Poobah. When the Grand Party commenced, he got a group of his friends to propose new rules. The rules went like this: The girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt and her friends had to give a really, really solemn promise ("cross your heart and hope to die") that they would not let any more boys who lived with other boys and girls who lived with other girls (the way Mommy and Daddy live together) join the Pointy Hat Club.

The rules also said that those who had refused to play with the girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt had to stand in a corner until someone let them out. Those who had become friends of the ones who refused to play with the girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt could not let any of the members of the first group out of the corner in which they were forced to stand; and they had to agree to stay home and play in their own yards.

When the boys and girls who had refused to play with the girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt heard the new rules, they were quite upset and murmured as to how it was the girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt and her friends who had broken the rules in the first place and asked how they could play with someone who could not possibly be trusted. Their friends from far away said that they had only tried to be friends in order to give these boys and girls someone to play with and asked why they should have to give up their new friends.

But the Grand High Poobah averred as to how the new rules were good rules, and how they had taken a lot of hard working boys and girls a long time to come up with, and since every club had to have rules, they might as well use these. The girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt and her friends disliked the new rules, but finally agreed to give a solemn promise ("cross your heart and hope to die")--and only those who looked closely could see the twinkle in their eyes as they promised and the fingers of their other hands crossed behind their backs.

So in the end, the girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt and her friends played according to one set of rules. The boys and girls who had refused to play with the girl who sometimes wore an oven mitt said that if the Grand High Poobah was going to talk about rules, then they really preferred The Old Rules best of all, and they would continue to play according to them. But the Pointy Hat Club was never, ever the same again.