The Pink Camouflage Cap

Anyone who's seen photos of the 2009 Romance Writers of Australia conference will have seen the Bootcampers proudly wearing their khaki caps at the Annual General Meeting. It was a fun afternoon and I think of that day every time I wear my cap.

The other day I went out running, wearing the bootcamper cap. When I say running, this is probably an exageration. In reality I was shuffling along with a painful-looking movement much like that used by gumboot wearing Ultra-Marathoner Cliff Young in the 1980's.

A fit looking young woman dashed past going the other way. I noticed her stride, the effortless ease with which she was pounding the pavement, how nice her running gear looked. And then I noticed her cap.

An exact replica of mine, except for the colour. Hers was pink camouflage fabric. "Oooh, nice," I thought as I hit the brakes and wheeled around for another look. "Very nice," I thought. "I should ask her where it came from."

I tried. Really I did. But my legs, twenty years older than hers, just weren't up to the task of chasing her down. She'd taken off, her cap bobbing jauntily in time with her stride. Last I saw the fabulous pink camo cap, it disappeared over the crest of the hill, with me only about a third of the way up.

I may not have found out the source of the pink camo cap, but I got an extra hill workout, and the rest of my run passed in a blur as I wondered about that cap and its owner. By the time I arrived home, I'd concocted several stories - armies made up of women wearing designer camo, career soldiers bringing home pink camo caps to their wives and girlfriends, army wives selling camo themed outfits to other army wives on EBay.

And my final thought as I kicked off my shoes and stretched: Is pink camouflage an oxymoron? Where would you wear it? Hiding out at a Barbie convention? Sabotaging a strawberry ice-cream factory? I still haven't figured it out, and the possibilities are endless.