Samson Syndrome

When Mandy was young, she slept with her long blonde hair up in a bun so it didn’t get in her face. (She still does this actually, and so do I). In the morning after breakfast, I would bring her over to the closet with the mirrored doors, and we would sit on the floor together while I brushed her hair. She would admire herself in the mirror for as long as the project might take, and we would chat.

Why didn’t my mother ever do this for me???

When I was growing up, my mother had long brown hair that reached all the way down her back. It was long and straight and shiny. So was mine. Except mine wasn’t so straight or shiny, because it was usually all knotted up.

(This photo is from the 3rd grade. I think my mother brushed my hair for this, because it looks like my barrettes are evenly placed.)

Probably once a week my mother would sit me down and start tearing into what she affectionately called The Rat’s Nest. This was a ball of knotted hair at the back of my head. It didn’t take long to develop. Heck, one night of tossing and turning in my bed and my hair was wrecked. I never knew about sleeping with my hair in a bun.

She used to threaten that if I didn’t take care of my hair, she would cut it all off.

The problem was, I knew nothing about the finer points of hair care. Sure, I brushed it. But I only brushed what I saw. I didn’t see the back. Or the “underneath”. I slid the brush down the visible surface of my hair. In the front. That was it.

I would cry when my mother started tearing into my hair with a comb at the end of the week.

Sometimes I would try to conceal The Rat’s Nest. When I realized it was there, I would carefully brush and smooth the surface hair over it. She always seemed to notice, though. Perhaps because there was a huge smoothed-over lump on the back of my head. Kind of like an elephant hiding under a throw rug.

Sometimes my mother would bring me to my grandmother’s house on the weekends, and my Aunt E would brush The Rat's Nest out for me. She brushed carefully. It never hurt when she did it.

When I was in 4th grade, my mother decided she’d seen enough of The Rat’s Nest. She took me to the salon, and my hair was cut short. It wasn’t too bad, though. I didn’t mind it. And my mother went on and on about how easy it was to take care of.

“Just wash it and go,” she would say.

My hair was getting pretty long again by the end of 5th grade. I was a cute kid. I had a few admirers. I thought maybe I might be one of the prettiest girls in my class. Boys snuck notes into my desk. A boy named Jamie wrote “I (heart) Tammie” on the fogged window of the school bus. Then David, not to be outdone, wrote David + Tammie = (heart). I blushed and looked out the window.

Then sixth grade came. In our school district, all three elementary schools converge into one middle school, and 6th grade is the first year you go there. This was a huge big deal. We would meet a whole bunch of kids we didn’t know. There were new boys to have crushes on, and new girls to give dirty looks to.

We were to be thrown into the social gauntlet.

Mom took me to get my hair cut again at the beginning of the school year. “I don’t want it cut short,” I said.

“You need something easy to take care of,” she said. “Besides, I’m the one paying for this, not you.”

That’s when I got The Boy Haircut. This is how I started the 6th grade.

No need to worry about admirers any longer. Or popularity. Or anyone wanting to be my friend.

Bad enough the acne was starting.

Bad enough I wore the same hand-me-downs year after year until my ankles were peeking out of my jeans and my socks were showing and everyone asked "Where's the flood?"

Bad enough everyone was wearing white Nike high-top sneakers with the laces undone so you could make the proper scuffing sound as you strutted down the middle school hallways with that perfect scowl that says “I’m cool and you wish you were”, and I was rockin’ those grayish-blue no-name sneakers with suede insets straight off the Caldor’s clearance rack.

But The Boy Haircut too?

“This is perfect!” my mother beamed. “Just wash it and go!”

Great. My life is over.

We attended a boring family gathering soon after I got The Boy Haircut, and one of the older relatives I didn’t know thought I was my older brother. “I haven’t seen Keith in so long!” she said. I glared at my mother.

I never got my hair cut that short ever again. In fact, I started paying for my own haircuts with my babysitting money by the 7th grade. By then, my hair was growing out and I feathered it back or curled it into those banana curls that framed your face like Farrah Fawcett.

But it didn’t matter. First impressions are everything, and I started my first year of middle school looking like short-haired, zit-faced, ankle-showing dorky mess.

It would be a very long time before I had to worry about a boy noticing me again.