Hairror Stories: The First Twenty Years

1000 words Not counting chapter titles

Hairror Stories

Born a bit premature, I was as bald as an egg but my body was covered with downy soft hair. It took a few days for it to disappear. Mysteriously it reappeared on my head a few weeks later.  No one could have guessed baby fine, bone straight hair would fill my life with trauma and drama.

Age 5 - Home perm

To this day the name Tony sends shivers down my spine. The solution burned my scalp. Unrelenting ammonia-like fumes assaulted my senses and lingered for days. Meanwhile the permanent rod’s evil, sharp teeth poked through the protective paper to grab strands of hair, tying them in little knots and holding on with a death grip. Unrolling the perm was as grueling an experience as the application, it just took longer. However the process was not nearly as horrific as the results. Curls so tight they defied the laws of physics. Thousands of curls, hundreds of which had inexplicably straight ends: giving the appearance they were trying to escape the carpet of curls on top of my head. Think Don King’s hair on crack.   

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Age 13 – The Sassoon

1964. Vidal Sassoon was king since the introduction of his asymmetrical bob. I wanted that hairdo! I finally broke down and asked my mother to cut it: the very woman that had been terrorizing my three brothers for years with ancient clippers; that over time had stopped cutting the hair and simply started ripping it out.

“No Dinky, I don’t want to. You always hate the cuts I do.”

“Pleassssssssssse mom, I swear I will like it this time. It’s so easy: blunt cut just below the ear on one side, angled on the other side, ending in a point about chin length, and just short in the back. I promise I will like it.”

I had complete confidence in her. That is until she turned the clippers on and I realized she was cutting the back all the way up to my crown.

“Stop! Stop! Stop mom!”
Too late. Although one side was blunt cut, it was well above my ear. The other side did end in an angled point but unfortunately was pointing at my eyebrow instead of my chin. I was already a stick figure of a girl and now I looked like a boy! For the next eighteen months giant, dangle earrings were worn at all times in an effort to help people discern my gender. It was the last time my mother ever touched my hair.

Age 17 – The Pony Tale

It had been four years since the nightmare of the Sassoon, and I had vowed to never cut  again. My hair had grown at glacier speed, now almost touching my shoulders but refusing to go beyond that point. Silk pillowcases, protective turbans and frequent trimming of split ends, yet it hovered there still.

I became convinced of the existence of microscopic hair chomping monsters living on my shoulders. Perhaps these critters were unable to climb above my shoulders due to the lack of legs or inability to survive higher altitudes. At any rate I knew they visited me each night, feasting on a banquet of any hair that approached my shoulders. There was no other logical explanation.

The ponytail was king, sported by nine out of ten girls in my high school. Ponytails, held in various positions by a heavy leather strip and wooden stick. My hair was so fine it couldn’t even hold a lightweight bobby pin much less a half pound of cowhide and lumber.

In an effort to make it stay in place I would twist my hair a few times and then weave the stick through that little knot. Much to my delight it actually worked. The twisting made my ponytail a fraction shorter but at least it prevented it from slipping out. I could now blend in with all the other girls. Or so I thought.

After months of bliss and the purchase of dozens of those leather strips and wooden sticks my best friend would shatter my happy little world. My world, my ponytail, my investment, and my desire to conform all ceased to exist with the utterance of less than a dozen words.  “I’m not sure the George Washington look is working for you.”

Age 20 – The Afro

Upon the sudden death of my ponytail the phantom of the page boy returned.  A hairdo with no hint of a wave, a cowlick, or any other device to disturb the uniform perpendicular lines my hair insisted on taking. I started to curl it.

Early versions were vilified by my father as Little Orphan Annie Gone Mad. No matter. Like a junkie, I was in a downward spiral, needing more and more each day. Smaller and smaller curlers were my gateway, eventually leading to pin curls and at the lowest point I had returned to my childhood nemesis: the evil permanent rod. The abused had now become the abuser. I had moved beyond wave, beyond curl, beyond coil and had happily arrived at my destination: Nappy.


I remember the euphoria of standing next to a group of soul sisters in a disco restroom, forking my golden afro. I pretended not to notice them staring and continued primping, and in the process, coating the sink with dozens of itty bitty semi circles of hair. Hair so fragile and bent out of shape the slightest pressure would cause it to snap.

Curiosity overtook the need to be nonchalant and one of them finally spoke:
“Is that your real hair, girl?”

Grabbing the front of my hair and pulling it upwards to show that indeed each hair was growing from my scalp, I responded with my best black girl impersonation;
“Well, it sho aint yo’s now is it?”

Let’s just say that was a mistake and leave it at that.




Vidal Sassoon is quoted “Hair is nature's biggest compliment and the treatment of this compliment is in our hands.” It seems, in my case, hair is nature’s ongoing practical joke.  From my point of view, it’s just not very funny.