To Bang or Not to Bang

Yeah, that’s just about the stupidest title I’ve come up with so far, but fuck it – I’m not creative enough to come up with anything better. So there.

OK, and now…onto the haircutting story that I keep promising you:

Let me just say right off the bat that I’m very protective of my hair. I think this stems from several things. First and foremost, I think a lot of the blame has to go to my mother and the unfortunate boy’s haircut she had me sport until I was old enough to object…

(Note: By her third kid my mom was over the whole ‘ooh, let’s dress him/her up and show him/her off to EVERYONE’ stage. This utter disregard for the prettification (shut up, I can make up a word) of her daughter, combined with a full-time job, led my mother to take some shortcuts with me. Nothing major mind you – I was given love and taught values – but as my mother likes to put it, she learned ‘not to sweat the small stuff’ by the time I came along. And apparently the small stuff included hairstyling. Anyway, quick overview: My mother gave me the same haircut as my brother until the day I (very loudly) stopped her. If I remember correctly this happened sometime around the 2nd grade. The reason I finally put my foot down was simple – I was pissed about recently being mistaken for a boy (shut up – it was an honest mistake considering I had no breasts then). Either way it was psychologically scarring, and to this day I don’t think I’m over it. But I digress.)

The other reason I’m so protective of my hair can also be blamed on a family member (I bet that’s true with a lot of us and our neuroses) – my dear older sister. Yes, she had her part in turning me into the nutjob you all know and love today. I learned many lessons from her (as we often do from our siblings). The lesson I learned from the story I’m about to tell was a simple one though: Never, EVER let your sister cut your hair after she’s been drinking. Seems pretty obvious now, but at the time…

Let me set the stage for you guys: Redhead – awkward 6th grader with SUPER DUPER bangs. Redhead’s sister – new college freshman who was probably psyched to finally be away from her annoying little sister. The place – parent’s weekend at the University of ________.

YES, you read that right – I had bangs (and we’re not talking the cute, side-swept bangs that some girls have today). Stop laughing.

Grrr…alright, let me explain the logic behind this hideous hairstyle quickly. Ummm, okay, so none of you know me (thank goodness). That means that none of you know what I look like (thank goodness again – yay anonymity!). Well, I guess what most people would say about me is I’m not average looking; I don’t look like the girl next door. I’m…I have a very distinctive look – I’m tall (and have been all my life), I have long red hair, and I have a particularly angular face. Now today that angular face works for me in a positive way, ie. great bone structure with especially nice cheekbones (if I do say so myself). But when I was 11 years old – this face did not work for me. In fact, it made me downright uncomfortable. I was a preteen with an adult’s face. And in a world where cute little things ruled, I was…not. I HATED it.

So, I tried to cover up that face (hence, the awful bangs), slouch away the awkward height, and generally just not stand out in any way. ALL I wanted at that point in my life was to go unnoticed.

Which of course explains the bangs, and brings us (finally) to the story of my sister, parent’s weekend, one too many beers I (stupidly) didn’t notice sis consuming, and a pair of scissors.

Now, before leaving for college my sister was my designated bang-cutter (God knows I didn’t trust my mother to do the honors). And after leaving for college – well, I guess you could say I didn’t replace her. In other words, I went cold turkey. And let me just tell you, I had the shaggy hair to prove it.

So suffice it to say, by the time parent’s weekend at my sis’s school came around, I was horribly in need of a trim. In fact, when we arrived in [city’s name], I was so desperate for a cut that I started badgering my sister almost immediately after saying hello.

Not surprisingly I was made to wait until after my parents took my sis (and 15 of her closest friends) out to dinner. Fine. I was patient. (Shut up.)

Yeah, so we went to dinner, everyone had a good time (in spite of me), and eventually I found myself back in my sister’s dorm room.

Now, um…I’ll be the first to admit that I may have been annoying her at this point. I had basically mentioned my hair and how it needed a trim…hmmm…every 5 minutes or so for about 4 hours. Yeah.

Anyway there we were, hanging out after dinner, and I guess I begged her for assistance one time too many. And with my parents (conveniently) out of the room, and my sister (uninhibited as she was after a few drinks) losing patience, I…certainly got my haircut.

One moment my sister was talking to a friend and ignoring me, and the next moment she was grabbing scissors off her dresser and coming towards me. And then…she cut my bangs. Yup, they were cut. Yessiree they were.

Note: I knew right away I was in trouble when I realized how drastically her cutting style had changed. In the past she had gone slowly, trimming a little bit at a time and doing everything in sections. This time she simply grabbed ALL of my bangs together, placed the scissors above where her fist held everything, and cut. Pretty high up. Like, a half an inch away from my scalp high up.

Wow, it’s still painful to talk about.

So okay, it didn’t look good. Or another way of saying it is it looked bad. Hideously bad. Ego crushingly bad. But…whatever. Bygones.

Long story short, my sister felt awful the next day, I looked like a spaz for months afterwards, I got over the self-consciousness I felt about my face, and I decided that I didn’t want or need bangs ever again.

And I haven’t had bangs since.

The end.