A Series of Unfortunate Hair Decisions

A few months before my return to Texas, I was planning an ambush on my hair.

I have extremely straight hair, which resists existing in any other form. My stylist and I had been waging a war, trying to get it to hold even a hint of curl. We were running out of options, and still my tresses laughed in our faces.

I was really looking forward to the next 2 months, because it was going to be a whirlwind: a Maui trip, John and Amber visiting, a family wedding, a road trip with my sis, and then finally, another wedding of one of my favorite people from high school. Fun! With the high volume of pictures I was sure to be in, I wanted to look nice. What? Just because I regularly post pictures in which I haven't taken a shower in 2 days doesn't mean I'm not completely void of vanity.

So, one day as I was getting my bangs cut, I was flipping through a hair magazine and noticed that there was this treatment you could get that gave you nice, big curls. I brought it to Aya's attention.

'Oh, you mean a perm?'

Now, the world perm is pretty scary. I immediately conjured up images of frizzy side ponytails, neon colors, and leg warmers. That is not what I wanted. However, Aya assured me that they'd come a long way from the 80s, and we could do a test on a strip of my hair to see if it would take.

Why not? I had visions of myself meeting family with this fabulously curly mane of hair.

So, the test went well, and we made a date - May 2nd I went under the solution.

First, Aya thought it would be best to cut my hair much shorter, so the curls wouldn't be weighed down. I reluctantly agreed. It was all for a good cause, right?

It took for freaking ever. 3 1/2 hours. The things we do to look good.

When it was finally over, she turned me around in the chair to look at myself, and my eyes eagerly met....

A blast from the past. I felt the need to go out and buy leg warmers and listen to Michael Jackson. I love Aya, and she was so proud of herself, so I managed not to cry until I got to my house. Thank you Lord, David was not home yet. I couldn't tear myself away from the mirror, staring in some kind of fascinated horror. What was happening on my head?!

At the time, there was a song being played non-stop in Hawaii. I don't know what it's called, but whenever I turned on the radio I would hear, 'p-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face' which is about how long it took me to change the channel. Now, my brain had lovingly changed it to 'p-p-p-poodle head, p-p-poodle head', and put it on repeat. I was distraught. I could not be seen like this! So, in desperation, I jumped into the shower. Perms nowadays aren't supposed to wash out, but I was hoping for faulty technology. I scrubbed the crap out of my head.

Which, in the end, left me with 1/2 poodle, 1/2 straight. Random sections of my hair would be straight, and others would be trying to imitate a curl. It turned out to be really curly in the back, which was random.

I went back to Aya the next day, and she offered to re-perm my hair. I politely declined.

In the end, I had to spend 30 minutes each morning trying to get my hair to look exactly like it did before I paid someone lots of money to pour chemicals on my head. And it was much shorter than I preferred. You can't tell now, but I really wish I had the foresight to take a picture when it was first permed.

I think I am officially done with perms. I don't care what 'technological advances' are made.

You can keep your leg warmers.