Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Before I start ranting and ravving, as it my wont, let me make one point crystal clear:

Justice is nine years old.

Nine years old.

Nine years.

Ok, we can move on now. This morning, while going through my morning ritual of shaving, showering and preparing a teaspoon of heroine over an open flame, Lil came into our communal bathroom, exasperated. This being 6:30 in the morning, I was suprised to see her so animated. She quickly gathered up her curling iron, buried a dagger in my chest with a peice of paper attached that read in a flowing, pirate-y script, "It Be Your Fault!" and burst back out of the bathroom door saying, "I have no patience with Justice this morning."

This really shouldn't come as a surprise. Justice, like me, is something of a morning person. True, if we have to wake her up, then she's more of a college-senior-who-partied-all-night-and-part-of-every-day person until she gets her feet on the ground. But in the main, she's far, far too chipper for Lil whose slumber is akin to a hibernating bear: don't wake her unless you like breathing and eating through a tube.

I find the the tube gives food a slightly plastic taste.

Still, we chipper morning people are hard to be around by the coffee swilling masses, and the coffee-denying-masses-who-should-drink-coffee-but-don't. So the fact that Lil was out of patience with Justice only ten minutes after the two of them were ambulatory is really no shock. What was interesting (though not shocking) was the why.

"Justice wanted to curl her hair," Lil told me.

"Ummm, she does know her hair is crazy-curly already, right?" I replied.

"Yes, and I'm tired of telling her, so I gave her the curling iron and hopefully she'll just learn it doesn't work."

At this point, what I like to call my "Duh Factor" kicked in.

"BUT SHE'S NINE," I implored to my wife and any low-flying gods that might be in the area.

"Duh," Lil retorted.

See how it works?

You see, even for a young girl of nine, the self-proclaimed QUEEN OF HANDBALL, TETHERBALL AND SWING DODGING, Justice is incredibly vain about her appearance. She's been on us almost from day one to buy her make-up, something Lil and I are vehemently against for someone who most days has more grass stains on her knees than the entire U.S. Women's Soccer team. Last night, I found four used fake fingernails in her pencil box that she said, "A friend gave to me." She treats chapstick like lipstick, and asked me at dinner, "Does it look like I have make-up on?" as she played with her upper eyelid.

It's not that I'm opposed to make-up, or taking care of your hair. Lord knows, I have great hair and so I understand the burden of responsibility that goes along with that. It's a heavy load, but for those with comb-overs, tupees, thinning, balding or bald afflications, you understand the gravitas of having good hair. Certainly, if you had good hair, you would treat it with the respect it deserves. I will not fail you.

So, after having shot up and showered, I trundled out to see Justice preening in front of her mirror in the second bathroom. I bypassed her altogether, and went into her room, which was, as I had suspected, a disaster. With an inward smirk, I gallumphed back to the doorway of the bathroom.

"Is it working?" I asked her.

"A little bit," she replied, which in Justice-speak means 'no'.

"Have we talked about you and your hair before?"

"Yes," she says, ready to go into mope-and-whine mode.

"And what did we say?"

"I needed to get my other stuff done first."

"What about your room?"

Justice pauses, and literally, a tear comes into her eye. No, I'm serious. I can make a nine year-old cry at the drop of a hat. Yes, yes, this is the level of power that I command.

You may feel free to swoon.

Actually, Justice is a Master Thespian. She can cry and even throw up with such precision as to make a fashion model turn chartruese with envy. Crying is especially effective with new people who have often shot Lil and I the, "What kind of a monster forces such an innocent and sweet child to read? Have you no shame!?!" The throwing up worked until Lil shut that down over a perfectly good bologna sandwich. It wasn't the sandwich Justice's select palette opposed, but rather the wheat bread it was fixed with.

Wheat bread.

As opposed to white bread.

Oh, the horror.

Being immune to this, and many other of Justice's Tricks-To-Get-What-I-Want, I simply tell her that she needs to pick up and straighten her room before she can curl her hair. But knowing that this fight will continue if there isn't an added threat, I state:

"If we have to fight over this again," and here I pause for dramatic effect, "We'll go to the Great Clips and have it cut off so you don't have to worry about it."