I’ve had really long hair ever since I was a little girl. I wasn’t particularly attached to it, but I’m just a busy person, so I always liked the idea of hopping out of bed and simply running a brush through my hair if I needed to be quick and put off the shower until later in the day. About a month ago, I took my kids to the South Bend zoo to meet my mom so she could take the girls for their week with Grandma, but it was one of those 100º+ days, and I could not get my long hair off of my neck. Since I had a fun trip planned days later to another zoo and an amusement park (2 long days outside!), I decided to chop off my hair.
The hairdresser made a big deal of it, asking me if my husband was going to be shocked, but I told her not really since he knew I planned to get it cut and isn’t really concerned with what I do with my hair. I told her I wanted my hair cut all one length since I’m not a big fan of the reverse mullet look that seems so popular these days. But when I looked in the mirror after she was finished, she had kind of left the sides longer than the back, giving me an involuntary reverse mullet. Sure, the hairstyle looks great on most people, but I just don’t see it for me. Besides, I don’t want to be just another I’m-in-my-30’s-I-have-4-kids-and-a-reverse-mullet-type housewife. So I told her to please even the sides out, and she (begrudgingly? did so. Is it this woman’s mission to spread the reverse mullet around the world like a virus?)
But that brings me to an interesting conundrum – if you have someone really bad doing your hair, would you tell them? Probably you would – it’s your hair and you are stuck with your new hairstyle every day, 24/7! What about when the hairdresser asks you, ‘How does it look?’ You would say, ‘not so good’. So she would even it out. ‘How about now?’, she would ask. ‘Still not really very even’, you say – and still she would attempt to even out your hair, finally sticking you with that reverse mullet look that’s oh-so-popular these days, even though it’s a reverse mullet against your will – a reluctant reverse mullet. Worse, an untalented hairdresser could keep attempting to even out your hair until you have nothing left! Maybe you could keep quiet during the incident if you were getting a bad haircut. You could return days later for a refund and try to endure another stylist’s attempt on your hair. You could also try to fix it yourself at home. Well anyway, by the time she was through with me, my hair was just a little shorter than I had intended, but in that heat, I really didn’t care. Besides, I was given a super long ponytail that I could donate to Locks of Love, a charity group that collects hair to make hairpieces for kids who lose their hair because of cancer and other medical conditions.
Better yet, when my oldest daughter returned home from her trip to Grandma’s, she wanted to cut off her long hair too. Luckily for our family, my husband has gotten quite good at cutting the kids’ hair, which saves us tons of money. I’m not brave enough to let him tackle my hair yet (though he might have been better in this case, but if he didn’t do well, it’s much better to be mad at a stranger hairstylist than my husband), but he cut off our daughter’s long ponytail, giving us another donation for Locks of Love.
My daughter and I walked over to the post office one day to send our donation, and I decided to send our picture in to the local newspaper since I’ve seen them print pictures of Locks of Love donations before. Yesterday they printed our picture! I can’t link to the actual newspaper since you have to be a subscriber to see it anyway, but here is the picture I sent:
That reminds of a question I had regarding hair donations – what would happen if someone left hair DNA evidence at a crime scene, and you became a suspect because the DNA evidence hair was somehow taken or dropped from a Locks of Love hairpiece made from your hair donation? If written well, it could be a stage play or movie… or maybe just a far-fetched CSI episode.
Cute picture. I could have had Dawn cut Taylor’s hair when she was with me. But it looks cute – Chris did a nice job.
Cute picture, wonderful cause.
Yeah, I’d complain if I didn’t like my haircut, but I don’t think the guy that does my hair would listen.
DNA evidence, not likely. That comes from the hair root, and since hair donations are cut…
Like the pic. Fixed it for you, though it’s not quite perfect:
LINK TO PIC WITHOUT RED-EYE
Not always the case justj – mitochondrial DNA testing is be done on hair without the root. Probably won’t build the strongest case in court, but then again, the idea was basically just a vague afterthought to begin with.
Looks good, derek, thanks! The red-eye crossed my mind when I sent it into the paper, but it was printed in black and white, so no matter.
VERY nice… and to think I almost missed the picture in the BTs. I could be so lucky to have enough hair to donate. 😉
You never know about the DNA thing. There was an episode of CSI where they almost got the wrong guy because he used his own hand to make Halloween props and his finger prints where found at a crime seen, because of it.
Ah yes, another interesting CSI scenario. There are many things that are CSI-esque these days, even if I have to hear about how inaccurate the show is from my brother-in-law who is in forensics and gets frustrated by the general public’s (and oftentimes the jurys’) misconception of how they think his job should be done. Nobody ever said all forms of entertainment were 100% accurate about their subjects. Entertainment is just that – entertainment.