“She [my mother] had to be at work at some ungodly hour of the morning, so she was already a couple of hours into her work day by the time I woke up to get ready for school. I would usually just roll out of bed 20 minutes before school started, throw on something completely un-cool (probably a jumpsuit made of polyester or some other flammable synthetic material) and go to school without so much as looking in a mirror.
I wouldn’t say that I was at the bottom of the food chain in elementary school, but I was dangerously close. As long as Brenda Bulver was around, I could usually fly under the radar – specifically Pam Hoff’s radar. Pam had perfectly feathered blonde hair, pierced ears and she wore a bra. She was also the meanest, nastiest girl in the entire school. I honestly don’t know that a day went by when she didn’t reduce some poor girl to tears.
Obviously, my primary goal in fifth grade was to stay on her good side so she wouldn’t break my face during recess. But one day, as we lined up to go to the library, she got behind me and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Euw! Gross! Think ya have enough oil in your hair? I could make popcorn with all that oil!”
From the time I’d started kindergarten, it hadn’t occurred to me to regularly eat breakfast, brush my teeth, or wash my hair. I had a routine of taking a bath and washing my hair every Sunday night and, I guess up until fifth grade, I thought that was good enough. The next day, however, I got up at 4:30 to start the process of trying to look like a girl.
It took about two hours just to wash and dry my hair because it was so long and thick. That morning I also used my mother’s curling iron on my own for the first time. Did you know that in the seventies, curling irons weighed about forty-two pounds and were made of die-cast iron?
I hoisted the heavy wand to the ends of my unsuspecting locks and carefully rolled up that first section of hair - the one right in front - all the way up to my scalp and left it there for a at least three minutes (I wanted to be good and sure that the curl took). As I squeezed the clamp to release my new, fabulous curls, chunks of burnt hair fell to the bathroom floor. I wasn’t deterred, though, besides, I had so much hair I didn’t think anyone would notice.
I only left the next section of hair in for two minutes. I lost less and less hair the farther I got around my head and, by the time I reached the front on the other side, I’d barely lost any hair at all.”
Excerpt from another book I’m writing, “Venus in Combat Boots.”
-Shannon
