If one is required to carry a hat, the most convenient place to stick it is upon ones head
Not always so. I once had a wonderfully bashed SD cap - it had spent all of Gulf War 1 in the bottom of my helmet bag. It was so floppy that it could easily be stuffed into a flying suit lower leg pocket...
Until the Boss spotted it. No "Get a new hat, BEagle!" - he took the simpler expedient of feeding it to a mate's labrador...
After prising it from the beast's dripping jaws, I shoved it in my helmet bag again and forgot about it - I had another 'Parades, weddings and bollockings' hat - this then became my in-use hat. Unfortunately I left it behind one day when flying to Incirlik for a few weeks as DetCo and had to use the labrador-slobbered SD cap (with a large chunk out of the peak!) during the daily dash from wherever I'd parked the turbo-Sahin to the morning O-group...
Eventually even the in-use hat was a bit too tatty for anything other than 'normal duties' - so I bought a new 'best hat' for next to nothing from stores
.
It was pressed into service a few months later whilst giving the AOC a somewhat sympathetic ear.....
Mind you, it cost a ridiculously small amount of dosh - less than £20 in 2002!!