Unfiltered Story #252552

I’m a guy with a particular hat which I adore, made by a local artist. It’s a brown felt hat, with very long bunny ears that go down my back and a cute face stitched on the front. Despite being told that my beard and piercings make me look “hard” (something I find absolutely ludicrous) people love talking to me when I wear this hat. I have a couple of stories I like from this, but this one just boggled my mind.
My husband and I went into our bank. We’re both white, but while he is very blonde I do have black hair/beard- said beard is a long goatee and “chin strap” which is trimmed, not a full facial beard. We catch the eye of a staff member, a woman maybe in her thirties, and head over to her, and she comments on my hat. As I usually do, I beam and turn around to show off the ears.
“Oh, I couldn’t tell what it was!” she said. “I was confused! I thought you were- well, that you were from Arabia or something!”
I honestly didn’t know how to react, so I just changed the subject to talk about the paperwork we needed. My surname is not English so I’m used to occasional confusion, but I’ve never had it because of my appearance- or my cute bunny hat!