There was a time in my life when I had very, very long hair. When I say long, I mean classic backwoods-homeschool-down-to-my-butt hair. I took care of my hair in the good ol’ fashioned way…as in I didn’t take care of it at all. I chewed on the ends (don’t ask why, I have no idea), rarely combed it (or washed it for that matter) and I screamed whenever my mother came near my head with anything resembling a taming device.
Needless to say, I had worked up a good rat’s nest on my head, which I only got away with because we lived on farm and people rarely saw me. At the time, I regarded this lack of socializing as a normal way of life and it never bothered me, it was only later that I figured out I was being spared from my utter lack of intelligence…or rather, the world was being spared my utter lack of intelligence. If I had been more exposed to the outside world at that point in my life, I have no doubt I would be sitting in a white room with my arms tightly wrapped around me.
By age seven my hair was in such a state that I could have comfortable housed a family of rabid bats and never noticed. One evening, my parents went on a date and my siblings and I had a babysitter. This was a great occasion because it meant we were allowed to watch a movie. Since movies were such a coveted prize in my house, I would do pretty much anything in order to savor that hour long delight. My calculating babysitter knew that the rabid bats would have to be driven from my hair at some point and used the movie as collateral.
As much as I hated my hair being in a recognizable form, I decided to sacrifice my head to the agony of soap and a brush in order to enjoy all that the cartoon The Sword and The Stone could offer. After my babysitter underwent an ordeal that has probably spared her any time she have to ever spend in purgatory, I peered at myself in the mirror with red mopey eyes.
The ordeal has been excruciating for my seven year old self and I felt that an ample amount of self pity was due. To my surprise, I was quite taken with the object in the mirror! Golly, I was just the cutest little thing with no front teeth and a wet mop of mousey brown hair!
With my hair wet and plastered to my head, I thought, “Why curls in my hair would make me the prettiest girl in the whole wide world!” After admiring my beauty for a full three minutes, an idea occurred to me…I will look even BETTER! In fact, I will lookBEAUTIFUL and FABULOUS!!!
Grinning to myself in the mirror, and thrusting my jaw out (because my bottom teeth fully made up for my front teeth being missing for nine months if I smiled like this) I decided that curls were just the thing to top off an otherwise flawless beauty. I pondered how to achieve these most necessary curls. The only object that I had ever seen make curls was my dad’s power drill. When screwed into wood, the shavings from the drill bit came out all crisp and curly. It made complete sense. I knew what I had to do.
Luckily for me, I knew exactly where dad had left the power drill that day, right on top of the dryer, plugged in even, as if to say, “Yes young girl, go curl your hair and become the beauty you were meant to be!” I scampered up the dryer and grasped the heavy drill with both hands. I had seen my dad use it a millions times and was fully confident in my skills. As I heaved the drill above my head with my scrawny arms, I thought, “If I place it on my head, all my hair will my curled, at once!” This seemed like the most efficient way to go about it. I placed the drill squarely on the top of my skull and pulled back the trigger. It took about half a second for me to realize that this was not going to go as planned.
I did not have the strength to push the drill down hard enough for a hole to be deposited into my cranium but the drill succeeded in whurring all my hair into a tornado of pain atop my head. I could not pull the drill off since my hair was all caught in it, letting go would pull all my hair out. My hands were stuck gripping the drill to keep it from penetrating my skull and my hair was doomed to all be swept up and returned to it original form; a bat’s nest.
My screams filled the house and at that moment my parents came home. I do not know what disturbed them more, the fact that I almost gave myself a lobotomy, or that I thought a power drill would curl my hair. Neither said much for my intelligence. After I was untangled amid tearful wailing, I heard the dreaded words, “We should probably cut her hair…”
COMING SOON!!!!
My Hair Part 2: The Haircut