When Mimi was about three or four years old, I found her hiding in her closet with a pair of purloined scissors in one hand and a hank of bright red hair in the other. My little girl was terribly pleased with her new found hair-stylist abilities…at least until she caught sight of herself in the mirror.
Despite my shock, I realized I couldn’t have come up with a better punishment than letting my vain child live with her bedraggled new hairdo for a few hours. I even managed to find my sense of humor about the whole situation by just thinking of the devastation of Mimi’s tear-stained face when she looked at the results of her efforts. To my relief, I found that Mimi learned her lesson well and didn’t touch her hair again for years.
Of course, by the time my contrary daughter hit her teens, she had decided that nobody was allowed to touch her shiny red tresses except for herself. (To be fair, all it took was a couple of bad haircuts at the salon. Who let’s someone walk out with visibly uneven hair anyways?) I chose to let her do her own styling. After all, she wasn’t begging for tattoos, green hair or multiple piercings. I suppose after a few years of this, she has decided that she is an expert. So did someone else.
When I came home from work yesterday, I found my mom seated in a chair in the middle of the front room. Mimi was right up behind her with a pair of scissors trying to fix the uneven mess that had resulted from Mom’s self-inflicted haircut.
I just hope Mom didn’t have to hide in the closet to do it…
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