The Mick
| Women Would Kill For That! |
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| Written by The Mick | |
| Monday, 25 February 2008 | |
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When I was an infant people would accost my mother while I was in her company to tell her what a pretty daughter she had. That would have been great except that I am a boy as I was at the time. Later in life I was able to travel on my own and would sometimes get the aforementioned afro cut shorter (to avoid the aforementioned misunderstandings as to my gender). Without fail I would be complemented by hairdressers on my curly afro. However, the compliments were always some variation of, “You have such great, natural, curly hair. Women would kill for this!”
In 6th grade I wanted nothing more than to have bangs like Tony Hawk or Christian Hosoi (professional skateboarders for the uninitiated) that I would swing from my eyes with a supremely cool flick of the head. However, hurricane winds could not move my hair, much less a cool flick of the head. Undeterred I invested in a large bottle of mousse and used at least half of it to plaster my bangs to my forehead in a vain attempt to wrangle the rat’s nest that is my hair into the bangs I so desired. I think it stayed in place for ten minutes before, strand by stubborn-ass strand, it sprung back into its’ natural state of Chaos Theory in Action. Later, in high school, I decided that I would grow it so long that the sheer weight of it would keep it from becoming the afro it always longed to be. I met with limited success, though for some reason that escapes me even now I decided to shave my head from one ear, around the back, to the other ear, so that I had a long, curly mop of hair. I wore it this way for some time before going to get a trim and hearing once again, “Women would kill for this!” at which point I cut it all off and said “Great, give it to them.” I don’t remember the date that my hair and I finally made our great compromise, but it was sometime in college. I don’t remember a lot of college so this gap in my memory is understandable. Regardless, it was a great day that I discovered Dep # 11 hair gel. Dep # 11 is slightly less viscous than wet cement and could probably be used in lieu of Elmer’s Glue in a pinch. Every morning I get out of the shower and smear a silver dollar sized glob of gel into the untamed nightmare that sits atop my head. Sometimes, I swear, I can hear it struggling to break free. And I laugh. Because I won. Until about 4 in the afternoon at which time the exhausted Dep finally begins to wear out and the afro slowly starts gaining ground. All day my hair battles, but that’s alright with me. We have grown to respect each other, my hair and I. We agree to disagree, and until Dep comes out with #12, that will have to do.
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I was born with curly hair. Actually, that’s not true. I was born bald. It was shortly after that the afro arrived. It has been my constant companion ever since. We have made our peace, but it was a long time coming.
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