Maybe you are wondering where the straw hat came from:

It came from Rite Aid, in Albany, NY, in the strip mall which also boasts the coffee and bagel emporium known as Uncommon Grounds; where you can buy an Italian soda or a chocolate covered espresso bean with your chicken salad sandwich. It cost about nine dollars and because it is a relatively fragile article of clothing I left it at my parent's house, which is also in Albany, NY, down the street from the high school, which was recently rated one of the worst schools in the state. I didn't want to carry the straw hat with me on the train, which runs from Albany, NY to New York City, NY, because my suitcase, which is cheetah-print, was too full of other things. Or maybe I just forgot it, because my parents drove me to New York City, from Albany, on the highway, in their new car, which is blue. Dark blue. Either way, I have a present need for such an accessory, because of my impending travel plans, which will take me from New York City, NY, to Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It will be tropical there, which means, hot, sunny, and humid. The hat arrived, in New York City, from Albany, via the United States Postal Service, in a recycled brown box which my mother mailed, by taking it to the post office and paying someone money to deliver it. Also in the box:

1. Black tights from Kohl's, a store which does not have a retail location in New York City.

2. A black cardigan of unknown origin, which is to say, the tag indicates that at one point it was for sale at a J. Crew store but I am uncertain as to its reason for being in the box, it is not mine but I think that after today I can consider it mine, unless I give it to someone else, if it looks unattractive on me.

3. A book, more specifically a novel, which takes place in the country of India and is written by a woman who was born and/or spent her life in that aforementioned country.

4. An Irish fisherman's sweater, either purchased by or hand-knit by my paternal grandmother, whom I never met, as she died before I was born. It is a good sweater and will not, unlike the some of the other things in the box, be used on or for any part of my trip.

5. A candy cane.