Bed Head

I was almost 4 years old when my brother was born. His arrival dethroned me. I was no longer the only child and the focal point of our household. I was jealous and I remember THAT like it was yesterday. Then, my mother, being the brilliant strategist that she is...uttered the magic words, "Oh honey, mommy really needs your HELP with the baby." From then on, he was MY BABY. I changed his diapers, fed him, rocked him and helped any way I could.

So, it was no surprise that at age 6 or 7, I was still helping with my little brother. It was my job. One morning, mom asked me to fix his hair for church. We went into the bathroom, I climbed up on the toilet seat, reached into the medicine cabinet and got out the tube of Brylcreem. For those of you too young to remember what Brylcreem is, it's like hair gel only completely different. So, I proceeded to slick back his hair and I did a bang up job. He was beautiful. Just then, my mother poked her head in the door to check on us. It was time to GO.

She looked at us both and said, "Oh, his hair looks so....beauti...." and she stopped in mid-sentence. Sniff, sniff, sniff.....she was sniffing into the air. "Honey, what did you use on your brother's hair?"

"The Brylcreem", I responded.

"Show me".

So, I climbed back up on the toilet seat (I was really little), reached into the medicine cabinet again, got the tube out and handed it to her.

She got this funny look on her face and said, "Oh lord. Honey, this is Preparation H."

"What's that?" I said

"It's medicine for your bottom".

No sooner had the word 'bottom' escaped her lips than I burst into tears, WAILING. Since I was crying, my poor little 3 year old brother started crying, hard.

We missed Mass that day since my mother was busy washing the Preparation H out of my little brother's hair. To my recollection, I never "fixed" his hair again. I tell everyone who hears this story that even to this day, his head is still the size of a Walnut.

Oh childhood trauma!

The Hair Stylin' Angry Lesbian

06/10/06