Hair Today . . .

I had always been led to believe one had to be a princess of noble-blood locked in the castle’s tallest tower in order to live the fairy tale. The odds are stacked against me:

Locked in my room:

Princess:

In a Castle Tower:

Oh, there is a castle tower, all right. And I can see it from my bedroom window. The point is: I'm not in it, at least not yet.

While lamenting my inauthenticity, the blood in my veins being red not blue, and the castle next-door being so close yet too far away as to inhabit me, I laid locked in my room, underneath the covers, waiting for the inevitable alarm when I could finally alight out of bed according to schedule—Mother's schedule that is.

I had nine minutes to lay here and ponder my lack of fate. So as usual, I chanted my multiplication tables as penance this morning, thankful that Mother did not divine to schedule my "rolling-overs". This activity is as exciting as watching my hair grow out the window. Around 7 x 8, my mind (or my head, literally) wondered back to that empty tower where I could imagine my glossy ringlets cascading out the turret. Rapunzel style.

Today, however, when I tried to sit up for the wind up, my head wouldn't go. I mean it was quite stuck, fixed firmly upon my pillow. I tried shaking and wiggling free to no avail. Lolling my eyeballs back, I could see my hair had actually grown and climbed out of the window on its own, its blond tresses getting tangled on the trellis outside. Groping with my hands, I tried to wrestle it free but my naughty mane had knotted itself all around the exterior of the house, curling down from the ivy vine to the red rose bush below. The locks held on tight while I flipped my legs back and firmly planted them on either side of the window frame.

Right before I was able to give it a mighty hefty heave-ho there was a knock on my door. I glanced at the clock.

“Taffy, why aren't you out of bed yet? It's LATE!” my mother scolded from outside my door.

“I'm coming!” I cried frantically while my hair obeying the voice of my mother suddenly decided to come in when called. Snapping back to my head, my golden coils knocked me clear across the room to the foot of the bed just as my mother opened the door.

She glared at me flat on my back.

“My hair was stuck,” I explained, but she had no time to listen to my excuses; we were already four minutes too late.

How I untangled the roses, picked out the thorns, braided my hair, swept the ivy leaves, made my bed, dressed for school, washed my face and brushed my teeth to sit at the breakfast table in front of my hot and steaming bowl of oatmeal, I will never know.