The Chemo Chronicles - Part One

Today’s topic is hair. It is something that has been on my mind lately due to the fact that I will be loosing mine shortly. I have decided that I will not get a real wig, as they are expensive and hot to wear over summer. I am going to wear funky hats and such instead. I do plan on getting a few fun wigs for a blog photo shoot. Maybe a pink bobbed Go Go wig or a blonde Porn Star Farrah flip. Have me some fun!

Thinking about hair caused some funny memories to pop up after forgetting about them for ages. When I was around 12 or so I had a friend in school that I would spend a lot of time with. I would often go to her house for dinner and sleep-overs. Going to this friend’s house was always strange for me because The Mom was really laid back. We were allowed to have coke and potato chips everyday if we wanted to. At my house that was a rare treat. Going to my friend’s house and eating fabulous junk food everyday was heaven. The Mom used to drive us wherever we wanted to go and let us get away with murder as far as behaviour was concerned. This friend of mine was very spoiled. She was the youngest child and had a few much older half siblings. Her dad had remarried and my friend was the only child of this relationship. The half brothers and sisters were adults and spoiled her too when they came to visit. With The Mom, anything went.

On the other hand The Dad was this grumpy old fat guy. At my friend’s house we would be able to do whatever we wanted until HE came home and then all these weird ‘rules” came into play. We couldn’t sit in HIS chair and couldn’t watch HIS TV and we were not allowed to refer to all sorts of things in his presence. We had to be quiet and stay out of his way. I don’t remember a lot of his weird rules as they were so strange and random they didn’t make much sense to me. So I liked The Mom and all the lax rules and junk food but dreaded it when The Dad got home. I couldn’t understand why The Mom put up with it.

I used to get invited on day trips with the family and my friend had to beg me to go with them because The Dad wouldn’t ever stop if we had to pee. That was the rule – no restroom breaks. Once we were on the road that was it. I was always terrified that I might have to go and be forced to pee my pants or something. So I wouldn’t drink anything all day just to be sure I didn’t have to go pee while we were on the road. Once I did have to pee and The Mom had to persuade him to stop. He did stop for me but we had to endure his wrathful silence the several hours it took for us to get home.

He was also super racist and I would be sitting there with this family while he spewed all this hate and feel so embarrassed that anybody listening might think that I was racist too. But I was always too intimidated by him to say anything against him.

The weirdest and funniest rule that I remember was you could not brush, touch or talk about hair in his presence. Especially if he was eating or he would flip out. The Mom would always wipe the kitchen floor just before he came home to make sure there were no stray hairs lurking about. He was one strange guy and I was always trying to be on my best behaviour around him. Apparently he liked me because I was polite – I had a British upbringing so I had good table manners and spoke to adults in a respectful way. I don’t remember him yelling a lot but there was a lot of complaining and then quiet yet very angry withdrawal on his part of something didn’t meet his approval.

One summer I was invited to go with my friend’s family to their cabin for a few weeks. It was actually a huge plantation style house and all the aunts and cousins were there too. The uncles, including my friend’s dad, occasionally came up on weekends. We all had a great time and ran around like savages. Then one weekend The Dad came and we had to stay clean and quiet for a couple days. We would go swimming at the beach and The Dad would never swim. He just sat there and grumbled. I realize now it was probably because he had this truly horrific comb-over and couldn’t risk getting it wet. The sheer magnitude of coif swirled atop his head was, frankly, mesmerizing to me. That was one intricate ‘do. One evening we were walking down by the wharf and for once in this fat balding grumpy man’s fucking life he was having a good time. He was joking and laughing and for no reason I will ever understand let out this big whoop and charged down the pier and jumped into the water fully clothed. We were all completely stunned. When he surfaced his comb-over had come, um, un-combed and there was his exposed bald head with literally 2 feet of hair, dripping water, hanging off one side. I was appalled and a little scared. It was like he was half monk and half hippy. So he got out and whipped out a comb from his soaking pocket and without the aide of a mirror re-coiffed that nasty hank of hair into the usual swirls and waves.

After that, whenever he was acting like a shit, I would just have to look at him and picture that lopsided 2-foot growth of wet hair on the side of his bald head and think YOU ARE AN ASS!