Shock and Awe

I was just sitting here quietly, minding my own business, poring over the latest It Girl book, when I happened to glance out the window and saw something that caused me to let out an involuntary shriek. A quiet shriek, but a shriek nonetheless.

My first thought was, "Why is that woman wearing a tumbleweed on her head?". My second thought was, "Wait, is that a woman? It seems to be capable of walking... and it has a purse". And my final thought before I lost consciousness due to shock was something along the lines of, "At least my hair doesn't ever do that."

People, I grew up in New Hampshire. I have seen some bad hair in my day. Hell, I've been to events where there wasn't a single non-offensive haircut in the whole damn place. But this woman... this woman hurt my eyes and she hurt my soul. And for that, I can never forgive her. If only I had any type of artistic skills, I would have immediately drawn her so that I could bring the picture to my next salon visit and emphatically point out what I do NOT want done to my hair. Maybe if I describe it well enough, one of my more artistically inclined friends (Jenn, I'm looking at you) can do an actual drawing. Until then, the best I can provide you with is this:

I know. Please, take a minute to absorb the image before you move on.


So as I was saying, it was mostly her hair that caused me to pass out, but in retrospect it was really the eyebrow/hair combo that pushed me over the edge. What you may or may not be able to tell from my crude MS Paint rendering is that her eyebrows actually looked like moth wings after the moth has been caught in one of those zappers and fried to an electrocuted, burnt mess. However, some of those eyebrow hairs managed to escape the singeing and grew to their full height, i.e. she just combed them right into her hair. And they were curly!

Hold on, I need to catch my breath.

The top half of her "hair" looked as though she went to a dog groomer and asked for their best poodle cut, but the groomer was having an off day and somehow managed to make it completely uneven and also needed to shave down bits where there were mats. The bottom half looked as though she might at some point have had a perm but it didn't quite take and then tree roots started to grow in it. It was also uneven, but in a less disturbing way, almost like it was in its natural state and all it needed was a good watering and she'd be good to go every morning. Some of the tendrils had regenerated where it was dead and sprouted little off-shoots of new curls.

Did I mention it was down past her waist?

I almost had the thought that she must have been involved in some kind of bet where the contestants wanted to see who could go the longest without ever touching their hair, kind of like the time in college when we were on the train in Boston and my friend Megan bet me my train fare that I wouldn't wear a side ponytail the entire trip and I did. Only, the train ride lasted about 10 minutes and this woman had to have been working on this hair for a bare minimum of 10 years, so I was kind of sad for her, but also amazed that she's apparently able to shrug off people's constant stares and stifled gasps without so much as pulling out a comb.