MindSpinner

Dark-haired daughter has an appointment for a haircut today.

She always goes in with a picture in hand, and she always comes out of the salon unhappy, almost to the point of tears. Her hair does not look like the hair in the picture.

It’s actually lovely hair, a river of dark silk when she brushes it, which isn’t often enough because she likes a “mussed up” style. And she always looks model-pretty after a trip to the salon (indeed much too pretty to be related to me). But she does not look exactly, precisely like the picture.

The appointment is at one o’clock, so she’s antsy an hour beforehand to access the MySpace of the girl whose hair she wants to emulate. She wants to print out a picture, a picture that will doom the poor hair stylist to failure because dark-haired daughter’s head is a different head than belongs to the girl in the picture, and her hair is different hair. I suggest, “Why don’t you just explain what you want? You’re always disappointed because your hair doesn’t come out looking like some other girl’s hair. Why not skip the picture this time and just see how it comes out? Your head. Your hair. Not compared to anybody else’s.”

Dark-haired daughter snaps back, a quintessential sixteen, “Mom (this is a word and a groan at once and requires expansion to two syllables the better to contain all her exasperation), don’t ruin this for me. Let me ruin it for myself!”

No doubt this is good advice, and I’m taking it.