Parents and Grandparents- HIDE YOUR SCISSORS!

Fiona and Neve return home last night, after spending the previous night with my parents.

Fiona looks different.

"Do you like my new haircut?"

The sides of her once beautiful hair have been chopped at the ear, while the back of her head still sports (and I do mean sport) long golden locks.

My parents have already come and gone by the time she confesses, quicker than their usual visit. I now understand the reason for their hurry.

I'm still appalled, saying nothing.

"Mom? Do you like how I cut my hair? Did you hear me?"


"Fiona. When did you- where did you- WHY!??"

Her bottom lips begins to quiver way too soon, almost as if she anticipated this very reaction, but with faint hope that I may have loved it.

"I thought you'd like it..."

"I don't. But even if I did, it still would have been a bad thing for you. KIDS CAN'T CUT HAIR!"

At the moment I blurted it out, I was thrown back to the time I shaved my brother's hair with my mom's Lady Bic razor when I was maybe 12 or 13 years old. (He was 6 or 7.) I proceeded to drape a towel over his butchered head and carefully escort him downstairs to my poor parents. In all my tweenie stupidity, I proudly revealed my brother's unwanted makeover to my (very) angry parents. "Ta Da!"

"You never said I can't cut his hair", was my answer to the same question I just asked Fiona. My dad went on to list all the things I'm never allowed to do to my brother (and myself, as it came to him). Some were funny, some were absurd, and some were seriously dark. Life has come full circle.

I cannot articulate in writing the funniest part of last night's events. I'm still not sure why, but Neve, actually, was the one who got upset for Fiona. She began screaming,

"Don't cut her pretty hair! No, no! She's going to look like a boy!!!!", sob, sob, sob. She had real, big tears in her eyes as she pleaded with me! Even Fiona looked confused over Neve's reaction, which made me and Fiona laugh and broke the ice.

"Neve, step back. Fiona, you will look like a boy. An ugly boy. And you will remember, every time you look in the mirror, that KIDS CAN'T CUT HAIR!"

Of course the vain mother in me overruled that idea, doing my darndest to keep from giving her an ugly boy's haircut. I kept mumbling, "WWAHD?", What Would Audrey Hepburn Do? Her haircut may not have achieved Audrey Hepburn standing, but at least we got beyond Patrick Swayze ranking.