The Tousle and the Hair

My hair is stick straight, fine, and abundant. It lays flat against my head. To have any body, I have to use products with names like "Big Sexy Hair" and fashion creative hairstyles involving razor-cuts and 80's-style back-combing. However, I never can manage that Diana Ross sort of body that I crave. If I had it my way, I would have an Afro, one that could be tamed only with a variety of flat irons and lye. I also have a forehead cowlick. This means that when I have bangs, I must be very vigilant about keeping the cowlick in check, lest I look like a tousle-haired little boy in a Norman Rockwell painting. When my cowlick is out of control, I might as well be toting a beagle and doffing my clothes near a sign that says "Swimmin' Hole."

Not only do I have a cowlick, my forehead is so large that I don't have a forehead, I have a five-head. People must face the sun when they are talking to me lest they risk being blinded by the light glinting off of my massive Caveman-like head ridge. If there is proof for evolution, it is in my forehead. Scientists have even suggested that I am the Missing Link. So these are my choices: 1) taming the nefarious behavior of my widow's peak, or 2) constantly being approached by billboard representatives to see if I will rent my forehead out for ad space.

I have been insecure about the attractiveness-shortcomings of my head ever since I became aware of them. This occurred at the age of seven, when I heard my mother's friend whisper to her that a "permanent" might stop me from looking like a wet long-haired chihuahua (I do have a bit of a Latina look) and could also disguise my cowlick. My mother, who was tired of explaining to people that I was not a tousle-haired boy but a girl with unfortunate hair, conceded that this might be a great solution. So I spent a miserable afternoon in the kitchen, covered in body-wave solution and a garbage bag smock, my hair rolled so tightly against my scalp that my eyes bulged from my head. The result of this endeavor? I looked like a wet Lhasa Apso. I had a barely discernible amount of waviness (imagine the low-frequency wave that would be displayed if Barry White spoke into an oscilloscope). Then, with my hair being as heavy and plentiful as it is, the curl fell out completely about a week later.

After that, my mother pretty much abandoned any idea of me having feminine tresses. She stopped dressing me in pink and silently hoped that my emerging curves would help others to realize that I did not have a Y chromosome, despite my large collection of Matchbox cars. I rarely got a haircut, and I constantly looked unkempt, with my cowlick sticking so far out from my huge forehead that I started to resemble a Neanderthal-like unicorn, and my bangs so long that strangers longed to tie them up in a bow like a poodle's. So the summer I turned 11, I decided that I had had enough hair humiliation for one lifetime.

The State Fair for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is considered a compensatory event for U.P. residents, who aren't really considered part of the state. Despite our second-class standing, the class trip to the State Fair was a prime social event. I wanted to make my debut at this important affair as a refined and beautiful pre-adolescent. I decided that if my mother wasn't going to take me for a haircut, I had to take matters into my own hands. However, as I leaned over the bathroom counter and peered into the mirror, I realized that the basic bang requirement is that they are fashioned in a straight line. Having a history of not even being able color within the lines, I realized that I needed some sort of straight tool to cut a line against. I dug around and found some bias tape, used for cutting clothes patterns. Placing the bottom of the half-inch tape against the tops of my eyebrows (a logical length, it seemed), I placed the kitchen scissors to my hair and began to cut. The click and gnaw of the implement against my unwanted hair made me feel very smug in my scissorly stab at independence. This was until about halfway across my forehead, when I realized, with a gasp of horror and acid in my throat, that I had cut above the bias tape. Eyes filled with tears, I resignedly continued cutting along the horrible path I had blazed for myself. I took a step back after the deed was done to examine my non-handiwork. Trying to be calm, I went and found my older sister, who was talking on the phone, to seek her advice. I even brought a level with me to affirm that this was not a tragedy (as the line was as straight as Bill O'Reilly in a gay bar), but a situation for which I was seeking creative camouflage.

The second she saw me, she started to laugh. I lost all sense of zen and began to wail, "What should I dooooooo?" She responded, with great authority, "Drink milk. Milk will make your hair grow back by tonight." I was slightly suspicious, because my sister was not exactly the most loving sibling, having engaged in activities such as pantsing me in gymnastics class and allowing the boys at the bus stop to give me noogies. However, I was willing to try anything. The State Fair was in two days. I went to the kitchen and guzzled glass after glass of milk until I felt sick. Trudging back to my sister to report on my progress, I heard her remark to her friend, "My sister messed up her bangs so I told her to drink milk to make them grow back (cackle cackle cackle)!" Suddenly, I didn't feel so guilty about that time I threw the cat at her.

My bangs didn't grow back until well after the State Fair. Fortunately, my breasts had started to bud over the summer, and the other kids at school were distracted from my bad hair by my new curviness. With my quickly-blooming chest, swiftly-defining hips, and my half-forehead blunt-cut bangs, I looked like an 11-year-old Bettie Page. This has recently become the new "look" among some trendy indie people. Bad hair or not, I was a girl ahead of my time. I can't engage in that look, however. My unicorn-cowlick prompts Renaissance-fair types to want to display me in their mythology booths. I would much rather be erected as a billboard for BudLight. There's an interesting ad for BigSexyHair on the other side of the freeway. A girl can dream, can't she?