Bad Hair Day

As soon as I put scissors to hair, we knew our plan had failed. We had to go to Sam's club.

Let me back up a second to explain how our fool proof plan went South. We had imagined that if our home made hair cut failed it would just be an opportunity of humility for Sister St. Aloysius.

There is a difference between humility and running around looking like a serial killer in a veil.

It was humbling to find that out.

We had quite a discussion about ourselves there for a moment. We're not here to look cute and give everyone a warm smile from their nostalgic past. We are working women, dedicated to Jesus and His church. We don't need style or beauty.

But we do need credibility. And that hunk that came out of the front of Sister St. Aloysius' hair....

...we tried to cover it up, or comb it away, but when I looked at her I found my eyes drifting toward the top of her head the way one's eyes do, with a will of their own, when one encounters a gentleman with some dead animal on his head that he seems to think looks like a full head of hair.

We couldn't just drop everything and go, which was good. If I had any doubts that we could somehow get away with what I had done to her they were erased each and every time I looked at her. Eventually it was very difficult not to laugh. No credibility for you, Sister St. Aloysius!

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was last Saturday. I cut my Sister's hair in such a way that she looked liked a Fighting Seebee with the Axe Murderer's Special. Then I laughed at her all day."

We finally got to Fantastic Sam's late in the afternoon, a busy Friday.

We cause a bit of a buzz sometimes. I think there might have been some wrangling amongst the hair stylists about who would have the honor, or the chore, or the impossible task that had become Sister St. Aloysius. All eyes were upon us, that's for sure.

Sister St. Aloysius had the wherewithall to leave her veil at home to avoid the uncomfortable moment of removing it at the Sam's Club. If not for her shoes, a dead give away, she could have been some lady I was accompanying to her hair cut. So it occurred to me that I might make whoever worked on her very nervous, as though they might do such a horrible job that this poor woman brought a nun along to stand next to her and pray for success.

I try not to draw attention to myself, which in a habit is just about impossible. After my donnybrooks at the bank and the fabric store (...and others.....) I don't have a good track record at keeping a low profile. So I tried to find a spot where I could sit quietly until Sister St. Aloysius was done. There wasn't too much hair left to cut, so it couldn't take long.

One of the young gentlemen who is employed there took it upon himself to yabber at me and try to get me things to drink. I thought a "thank you, no" would do the trick but he was persistent. He had something sticking out of his nose on the side, something stapled into his eyebrow and tattoos all over his arms.

He peppered me with questions: was Sister St. Aloysius a nun, too? Is the habit hot? uncomfortable? Are they more of us? Did I need a haircut?

"Young man, " I finally said to him. "Let me ask you something."

"Oh yes, sister! Anything at all!"

"Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? At the end of time when your soul is reunited with your body, what is God going to have to say when he sees that after he gave you this perfect body, you took it and poked it full of holes and doodled all over it?"

I don't think he had the slightest inkling of what I was talking about.

At least the police weren't being called.

Sister St. Aloysius looks okay. Her credibility is intact. She won't need a haircut for quite some time.