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Life is tough. Nuns are tougher.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

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.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe you should buy a Flowbee. This is a haircutter thingey you attach to your vacuum cleaner and it cuts the hair and sucks it into the vacuum in one fell swoop. Also it has attachments so that you can't cut the hair too short. I think you can check it out at Flowbee.com or on ebay. No one should ever have to have a bad hair day, after all.

Anonymous said...

Well, look at it this way, Sister, she can't look worse than those photos you posted! We had a scary hair day at our house when my son went to bed with his silly putty in his hand and woke up with it in his hair. It took the barber nearly an hour to work enough out of the way to cut the hair underneath.

Sister Mary Martha said...

Next time your son falls asleep with silly putty or chewing gum, try freezing it with an ice cube. Then it just cracks off.

Move over, Heloise.

CMinor said...

I've heard peanut butter works on the chewing gum, too. OTOH, with a boy, if things go bad with the hair you can always just shave it all off. I've had to do one of my guys twice so far. But I guess Sr. St. Aloisyus wasn't feeling that sacrificial.

Sister Mary Martha said...

If we had shaved her head she would have been accused of being some sort of 'activist' nun.

Anonymous said...

Or a nun who is Sinaed O'Conner fan.

Kasia said...

I think any nun who is a Sinead O'Connor fan is by definition an 'activist' nun - Ms. O'Connor is not exactly an orthodox Catholic. I think she claims to be an ordained priest in a knockoff-Catholic organization. And her songs tend to reflect her political and spiritual beliefs. I'd give examples, but I don't want to lead anyone astray...

Sister Mary Martha said...

Ms. O'Connor embodies the actual meaning of the word "scandal."

seeking_something said...

I get my hair cut approximately once every three months. It's almost military shear, but in the hands of a good stylist, it looks great on me. The hair on back and sides are super short, and gradually gets longer up top. So if they had to cut more off of Sr. Aloysius's top, they'll just cut the hair on the back and sides even shorter.

Sister Yesterday said...

That is the funniest rug I've ever seen. Perhaps it is just playing possum and will eventually wake up and move along.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the ice cube trick! I'll remember that next time I'm idiot enough to purchase silly putty.

cattiekit said...

A *Flowbee*! OMG, I'm rolling on the floor here. (>D

My present hair stylist thinks a Flowbee is on a par with the infamous *Bowl Cut*.

Y'know. Where you drop a salad/mixing bowl on the victim's head and chop off whatever shows up below the rim.

Dang. I always have so much fun visiting this blog. :>D

cattiekit said...

Actually, I think your "donnybrooks" (at least the one at the bank) show a sense of righteous indignation totally keeping with your station.

Wow, that kind of rhymes. :>}