EMS: I'll tell you, it's funny, last year we got them in and very few people bought them. This year the hats came and went out the door immediately.

FM: Very, very interesting...Who buys them mostly?

FS: Let's see, if I was going to generalize, I would say it's mostly people ages 16-24--a lot of young beer-drinking men who think of it as a joke, and just do it for the hell of it. It's definitely a source of amusement as well as a form of childish regression. But also young kids buy them, especially the hats with bells, largely because they see them around and think it's cool and funky.

Dizzy with the radically democratic prospects of different groups purchasing jester hats--children and adults, boys and girls, Marxists and capitalists, beer-drinkers and Gatorade-consumers--FM cautiously but excitedly whispers: Do you think a jester-hat movement is afoot?

FS: What? ( Pause.) No. Thank you for calling EMS. Bye.

Next stop on FMs' search for the source of this puzzling fad: the Lampoon. FM consults with a former Lampoon editor. "Well, basically the Lampoon was founded by a bunch of Masons who believed in subverting the system. If you don't wear a three-tailed cap with bells, that can't be accomplished. So, yes, they are worn in the Lampoon." But the editor does not know where the sacred store of jester hats are kept in the Auburn St. castle. "Hell no, I can't even find the bathroom when I'm in there."

Ever-persistent, FM calls the fearless Lampoon leader himself, club president John Abound III '95. "Well, we do make jester hats....The vast octopus which is Lampoon merchandising department has distributed jester hats to our subsidiaries, although we are not selling them to the general public."

But is the Lampoon openly seeking to proselytize and gain Jester hat converts? "Look, although in one sense the Lampoon is the hotbed of Jester hat ideology, if you want to know the truth, Jester hats are a big practical joke," insists Abound. "There is nothing cool about a Jester hat. I mean, the Jester has gotten a lot of good press, but basically they were a bunch of physically deformed imbeciles. We're going to make money out of it along the way, but the Lampoon is horrified and ashamed at any such movement."

But not even the vast octopus which is the Lampoon can dissuade FM now.

PLAN TWO: The Friend with the Jester hat. FM approaches such friends.

FM: Do you ever wear your Jester Hat?

Friend: No, I don't, just keep it on top of my computer, where things often get too serious. So I use it to lighten up the mood.

FM: I see. Do you think a Jester hat movement is afoot?

Friend: Hardly, it's more a throwback to the dungeons and dragons phenomena. The people who wear them are the same kind of people who get aroused about Renaissance and medieval festivals.

FM (Realizing the extent of the friend's ignorance and with ulterior motives in mind): Well, since you're not wearing it, could I borrow it?