Tuesday, July 15, 2008

A hairy situation


So I was blow drying my hair the other day, flippin' my head around like nobody's business when
*slurp, grind, rip, POW!*
and my hair was sucked into the back end of that blow dryer.

Well I yanked that blankety-blank-blanker away from my head, shut it off, and threw it in a bathtub full of water.
Because that little tag told me not to.
Ok, no, I didn't do that, but I wanted to.

Aside from feeling like I had been scalped and betrayed by my beloved blow dryer, savior of frizz, and the acrid smell of burning hair filling the bathroom, not much damage was done. However, it did remind me of a story about my sister which I will now tell without her permission. I'm sure she doesn't mind though, do ya Em'? Its a good one.

Emily, Mom, and I were in the kitchen while Mom was cooking, all of us chatting away and going about our usual kitchen activities (Emily and I sitting while Mom did all the work) and by the way, this was *many years ago. Many many years ago. Before I had even considered turning a quarter of a century. Before I knew what that even meant.

Anyway, Mom was using a hand mixer to create something delicious and Emily, being the curious little one that she was, leaned forward to get a better look. Boop! A chunk of hair fell forward. GRIND! That chunk of hair got sucked into the beaters so fast there was no stopping it.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if your hair or your finger got in the way of the beaters? I don't wonder anymore. That whole chunk of hair just ripped right outta her head. There was no turning off the machine and unwinding her hair from those beaters. Nope, before you knew it, it was already too late.

Poor Emily, she cried of course (wouldn't you?) and rubbed her head for awhile but we couldn't really tell where the hair came from so we figured no harm no foul.

Later that night as we were finishing our dinner Mom stood over Emily and stroked the top of her head, moving her hair around a little bit. "{Gasp} Rog, come look at this." Of course that meant all of us kids had to clamber up and look too. There, right on the top of her head was a bald spot where that hair had come from.

Whoa.

Bummer for Emily. The only thing worse than having a comb-over at age 3 (or so) was the mini mohawk she had to cover as that hair grew back in. {chuckle} Ok, sorry. It's not funny. So, have you had any good hair stories? Did you ever have to cut all your hair off due to a rogue piece of gum? Did you cut your own bangs... when you were 2, or even 22? Anything catch on fire ever? Tell me your hair stories, I like 'em.

*Disclaimer: I was pretty young when this happened and so if I made anything up I'm sorry. This was just how I remembered it, Mom, please correct me if I'm wrong.

8 comments:

  1. Ahh, you remember it well. The only thing extra I remember is that we warned her not to lean over so far. I don't think she cried much--she was mostly in shock.

    ReplyDelete
  2. We were at some Spanish mission (I honestly have no clue where we were) feeding the birds when I was 4 or so. A pigeon landed on my head and took a grip full of my hair when it was shoo'd away. Yeah, I'm not fond of birds. No bald spot that I can remember.

    ReplyDelete
  3. When I was younger my mom used to cut my bangs just at the top of my eyebrows...well, I decided, I can totally do that (mind you I was about 7 years old)! So, I took the scissers into the bathroom and cut my bangs RIGHT at the top of my eyebrows....I sat back to enjoy my work and....YIKES....I had been raising my eyebrows as I cut! WAY TOO SHORT :) My mom was pretty mad! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've never had a serious hair disaster, but I love hearing about other peoples'! Ashleigh cut her own bangs when she was in junior high and I remember Zach (who was probably about 4 or 5 at the time) saying, "Your hair looks like squig-squag, squig-squag!" Funny.

    ReplyDelete
  5. When I was about 6 i leaned over into a cupboard to get my hair caught in a sticky mousetrap. Gross... I had to get my hair chopped off from past shoulder length to a bob, very dorky looking of course.

    ReplyDelete
  6. hehehe- very funny story. I dont have hair one- but I do have a hand mixer story. So last semester in one of my classes this girl told us about how she got her hand in the way of her kitchenaid and it broke all her bones in her hand, and ripped her skin all up- she had to have complete reconstructive surgery. yikes. Well about two weeks ago I was making cookies..thankfully with a hand mixer...my spatula got caught and my hand dove in for it. Bad Idea. My fingers bled, and it hurt pretty bad, but no permanent damage thank goodness. By the way- that reminds me Mari- remember that semester when you were like Cookie Baketress Extraordinare...good times.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I was starting the grill and it exploded in my face, partially burned my eyebrows and the front part of my hair. That was pretty crazy! I don't remember if you were there or not...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Back in the 80's, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my hair, so I gave the stylist carte blanch. Mind you, I was in a "REAL" hair salon, so I thought I was relatively safe...I was not. I ended up with an asymmetrical short hair do, and with heavy/limp hair. Think scary Duran Duran. It looked horrible and I had no idea how to fix it. I am still traumatized.

    ReplyDelete