We Are Coolio's Hats

We are Coolio's hats.

As you can imagine, we have mixed feelings about last night's episode of Celebrity Wife Swap, in which Coolio's girlfriend Mimi traded places, for a week, with Sugar Ray frontman Mark McGrath's wife Carin. On one hand, we were ashamed that Coolio's participation showed the horribly compromised state that ownership by Coolio has brought us to, in that he has made holes in every last one of us in order to pull his pigtails through. And when we say every one, we mean every one, be it baseball cap...

...military cap...

...or even noble driving cap.

And we are not naïve: we know the reason Coolio does this is twofold. First, if not for his trademark tiny braids, strangers running across Coolio at this late date might not know who he is. "Gangster's Paradise" was many years ago, after all! "Why doesn't Coolio just go hatless?" you might ask. Well, this is why.

The man will be fifty in a few short months, and evidently the years since his big hit have been hardest on his hairline.

So yes, we're embarrassed that what might, in the hands of another owner, be a respectable collection of hats, caps, and various other scalp-concealing devices has been revealed as so much garbage, which will be of no use to anyone else once Coolio tires of its component parts. But at the same time, we did feel some relief that the abusive situation in which we have found ourselves has received some attention.

It would be violent enough if Coolio were to have taken us to a milliner or even a regular tailor to have holes cut in us that were then properly finished -- you know, like buttonholes! It would still be a negation of the designer's vision, but at least there would be some dignity in it.

But, as you saw last night, this is not what Coolio did. Instead, before wearing any of us, Coolio roughly stabbed holes in our crowns, with a knife or an icepick or even the tip of a pair of scissors, and called it a day. These aren't proper holes. They're the hat equivalent of puncture wounds.

So now that you know what goes on in Coolio's house, and in Coolio's wardrobe, please: help us! One bad fall while he's ice skating and any of us could tear right in half!